ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

JUSTICE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Young Offenders (North-West)

Ben Wallace: What assessment he has made of the availability of rehabilitation schemes to young offenders in the north-west.

David Hanson: It is a core objective of the Government to improve rehabilitation schemes for young offenders with the aim of cutting crime and changing lives. We keep that under constant review.

Ben Wallace: I thank the Minister for his reply. One of the major contributions to reducing reoffending, especially among young men such as the ones held in Lancaster Farms in my constituency, is the use of residential outdoor courses, often supported by the YMCA. What will the Department do to encourage more use of those to help those young men rebuild their lives after their offences?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and it is important that we provide a range of activities to give people some experience outside the criminal environment and to try to change their lives by acquiring positive skills. He will know that throughout the north-west we have undertaken work with the Prince's Trust and the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. In the last three years in the north-west alone, 332 awards have been made by the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. That partnership is important and will continue.

Joan Humble: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, as well as providing support for young people with substance abuse problems and mental health issues, Blackpool youth offending team is working with Blackpool council to identify suitable accommodation for young offenders? A homeless young offender is much less likely to be rehabilitated than one with a home. Will my right hon. Friend therefore try to ensure that suitable accommodation is available?

David Hanson: Indeed, my hon. Friend makes an important point. When people return to the community from a young offenders institution or other form of such accommodation, they need help and support not only with education and training but with housing. I am meeting the Housing Minister tomorrow to discuss that very issue.

Nigel Evans: One of the best things for young people in young offenders institutions is purposeful activity. It has been reported that at Lancaster Farms young offenders spend an average of only 9.7 hours a week on education or team activities, and 2.2 hours on sport or physical activity. Will the Minister look again at the level of activity of young people in those institutions and ensure that they undertake purposeful activities?

David Hanson: I will certainly look at that. There is a wide range of learning and skills provision—including work experience, the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, and Prince's Trust and other high-intensity work—going on in those centres. In relation to Lancaster Farms, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace), we are establishing links with Lancaster probation service and Lancaster and Morecambe college to try to get people into employment when they leave the institution.

Humfrey Malins: I must give the Minister a dreadful statistic. After 12 years of this Government, seven out of 10 young men released from the young offender custodial estate reoffend within 12 months and most reoffend 30 times within 12 months of release. What is he doing to stop that awful situation?

David Hanson: Those figures are coming down, but I accept in part what the hon. Gentleman says—there is still a high level of reoffending by young people leaving those institutions. As I have said, support is needed in learning and skills, literacy and numeracy, employment and housing, and in tackling the drug and alcohol problems that people have, and last summer we introduced the youth crime action plan to try to tackle some of those issues early on in people's criminal careers. The hon. Gentleman mentions 12 years of this Government, but the Conservatives' proposals to cut further money from this budget would be unlikely to lead to a positive improvement in activity at Lancaster Farms and Hindley in the north-west.

Nicholas Winterton: May I ask the distinguished Minister, for whom I have a very high regard— [ Interruption. ] May I ask how widely schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh awards—a fantastic scheme that does a great deal for the rehabilitation of young offenders—are available in north-west England, an area that includes my constituency?

David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and who am I to ignore the great cheers that he received from his hon. Friends? If we are engaged in a mutual love-in, I may say that I have a great respect for him and his work as a member of the Speaker's Panel and in this House. There were 332 awards made by the Duke of Edinburgh scheme in the last three years. Those young people have gone through the system, improved their lives and benefited from those awards. I want to see more of that, and that is why the partnerships with the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and the Prince's Trust are important in the north-west and throughout England and Wales.

David Burrowes: May I remind the Minister of another of the Government's figures, which show that three quarters of those in young offenders institutions are dependent on drugs? Why did only 100 young offenders from Lancaster Farms YOI start drug treatment last year? Does the Minister agree with the chief inspector of prisons' view, published in her annual report last week, that it is remarkable that so little has been done to tackle the fourfold increase in alcohol-related problems in prisons?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that this Government have increased by a massive amount the resources devoted to overcoming those problems. Obviously, there is a lot of drug-related crime, which means that individuals who enter the system need greater support. In the north-west alone, three drug and alcohol programmes and two offending behaviour programmes are in operation. In particular, there is the CARAT scheme, which provides counselling, assessment, referral, advice and throughcare. It deals with self-esteem, drug programmes, sexual health, the supply of drugs, healthy eating, steroid abuse, stress management and relapse prevention. All those schemes are funded by Government resources that, unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman's party has pledged to cut from our Department.

Coroners' Courts

Norman Baker: Under what circumstances coroners' courts may operate in camera.

Jack Straw: Under proposals in the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is at present before the House, a Secretary of State wishing to proceed to a non-jury inquest with a High Court judge in the circumstances specified would have to be satisfied that no other measures would be adequate to prevent the matter from becoming public. Those other measures would include rule 17 of the Coroners Rules 1984, which allows for a judicial decision by the coroner to exclude the public from an inquest in the interests of national security. That and other safeguards proposed in the Bill are likely to mean that the number of non-jury inquests sought by a Secretary of State would be no more than one or two a year.

Norman Baker: It is the national security aspect that worries me. Does the Secretary of State recall the tragic events revealed by the inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Hull, who died under US friendly fire, and how the US wanted to ensure that the cockpit video of that event was restricted to the coroner only and withheld from the press and public? It was subsequently made public only on account of its being leaked to  The Sun. Does the Secretary of State agree that inquests in closed session must be absolutely the exception rather than the rule? Would he also say that embarrassment to the Government of the day or to our allies is not a sufficient reason for closed inquests?

Jack Straw: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's last point— embarrassment is in no sense a criterion. I also agree that the use of non-jury inquests or proceedings in camera should be kept to an absolute minimum, and that is our aim.

Elfyn Llwyd: The Justice Secretary knows well that the whole purpose of the coroners' courts was to bring transparency to bear on the circumstances surrounding a death. Many of us still do not appreciate his argument that we cannot use public interest immunity certificates instead of having proceedings in camera. Proceedings in camera will undoubtedly lead to a great deal of bad will and people will be suspicious of what goes on.

Jack Straw: Proceedings can already take place in camera. The issue is whether one would have a more comprehensive article 2 inquiry before a High Court judge without a jury. I accept that it is obviously far better, if at all possible, for all the proceedings of an inquest to be in public. The duty will be on the Secretary of State, if he or she wishes to obtain one of these certificates, to show that there are no other practical alternatives available. As I explained on Second Reading last Monday, the analogy with a public interest immunity certificate process falls down because if a PII certificate is refused by the trial judge, the prosecution can simply withdraw the prosecution. What triggers an inquest is not the discretion of a prosecution but the fact of a death, and it is that issue which the House must address.

Patrick Cormack: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Bill applies to Northern Ireland? Would he agree that it is very important that provisions to allow inquests to be held in camera remain in that part of the United Kingdom?

Jack Straw: That particular part of the Bill is not currently intended to apply to Northern Ireland.

David Howarth: I accept, of course, that there are exceptional circumstances in which inquests would have to be held in private. However, I do not understand why the Government link those circumstances to those where there would be no jury. The Government have asked for suggestions, so have they considered the possibility of security vetting inquest juries in the same way that juries can be vetted in criminal trials for espionage and terrorism? That procedure has been in place since at least 1989.

Jack Straw: We are certainly open to examining other alternatives, as I have made clear. I think that the House now accepts that there is a problem that cannot be dealt with simply by PII certificates. I am therefore open to considering the alternatives, although I think that there are some practical problems because we are dealing with extreme circumstances in which there is a very severe risk, not of damage or embarrassment to the Government but of an individual—a covert human intelligence source, say—being killed. That is why it has been judged that such matters should not go to the jury. In a criminal trial, even when some of it is held in camera with a jury that has effectively been vetted, the operation of PII certificates means that part of such evidence will not be disclosed to the jury.
	One way or another, we have to face up to the fact that, if we want full article 2 inquiries, part of the evidence must be safely excluded from the jury. The issue is not whether that should be so but how best to do it, and of course I accept that it should be done in a way that properly commands public confidence.

Andrew MacKinlay: When he leaves the Chamber, will the Justice Secretary double-check on the reply that he gave to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), who is Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee? I think that the hon. Gentleman was correct to say that the Coroners and Justice Bill extends to Northern Ireland, and that is buttressed by the fact that last week we had very powerful representations by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission about the Bill, particularly in relation to legacy issues. With the greatest respect to the Justice Secretary, I think that he is wrong.

Jack Straw: If I am wrong, I shall of course correct the record. I have just been passed a note saying that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has said that he will not use the provisions in the Bill, and that they will not apply to legacy cases.

Andrew MacKinlay: So I was right!

Henry Bellingham: Does the Secretary of State accept that, if the new law had been in place, the inquests into the killing of Juan Charles de Menezes or the RAF Nimrod disaster would have been held in secret? Does he agree that, if that had happened, it would have caused outrage among the relatives of the deceased and that there would have been widespread public condemnation? Does he accept that, by pursuing the clauses in the Bill for the sake of one or two inquests a year, he is putting at risk public confidence and trust in the entire coronial system? Why will he not therefore listen to the voices of reason on the Opposition Benches?

Jack Straw: I do not believe that either the de Menezes case or the Nimrod case would have been subject to the process that is proposed in the Bill. Those inquests self-evidently took place satisfactorily, without the need for such a system. As I have said already, in deciding whether to seek a certificate under the Bill, a Secretary of State would have to show that no other measures would be adequate to prevent the material concerned from being made public, so I simply do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
	However, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that at present there are two inquests that cannot proceed because the arrangements made in the de Menezes and Nimrod cases are not regarded as satisfactory. The choice before the House is whether to have inquests—albeit conducted under the proposals in the Bill, or variations of them—or not to have inquests at all. I repeat to the House that I do not regard the proposals as copyright. We are happy to consider other alternatives, but the House has to face the fact that there needs to be additional provision that is currently not in the law, because otherwise some bereaved relatives will go without an inquest at all.

Custody Licence Scheme

David Jones: When he plans to end the end-of-custody licence scheme.

Jack Straw: I have made it clear to the House that I will withdraw the ECL scheme as soon as we have sufficient capacity in the prison system to do so. We have been undertaking the fastest ever capacity programme, and 2,700 more prison places became operational in 2008, on time and on budget. A further 2,300 prison places are planned for this year, 2009. Court cells have not been used since the end of February last year, and police cells have not been used since 23 September.

David Jones: When the scheme was announced by the Lord Chancellor's predecessor in June 2007, he described it as a temporary measure. Since then, some 47,500 prisoners have been released early, of whom more than 950 have offended while on licence; those offences include three murders and two rapes. In the circumstances, did not the Secretary of State agree that when his colleague Lord Bach said last month that
	"it is not entirely a satisfactory scheme"—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 20 January 2009; Vol. 706, c. 1555]
	he was guilty of the greatest understatement imaginable? Is it not, in fact, a positively dangerous scheme, and when does he propose to end it?

Jack Straw: Personally, I would take out the adverb: it is not a satisfactory scheme. However, it is better than the alternative, and far better, in terms of seeking to manage the prison population to capacity, than the devices to which the Conservative Administration whom the hon. Gentleman supported used to resort. At one stage, the Conservative Administration had 3,500 prisoners packed into police cells in wholly unsatisfactory circumstances. Over a couple of months, a previous Conservative Home Secretary released 3,500 prisoners, including some who, because of the severity of their sentences, would be quite beyond the current categories eligible for an end of custody licence.

Paddy Tipping: But would not the abolition of the custody licence scheme put added pressure on the prison population? The Secretary of State has made it clear that he has provided more places, and more are planned in prisons. What effect would a cut to his Department's budget have on those plans?

Jack Straw: It is quite clear that if the Conservatives were to follow through on their plans for formula cuts in criminal justice Departments, as proposed by the shadow Chancellor, prison provision would be subject to severe cuts.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have had anti-Conservative party propaganda from two Ministers, and we will call it a day at that. Ministers will answer the questions that are put to them.

Mark Harper: I did not hear anywhere in the Secretary of State's reply the answer to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones). Given that the scheme was supposed to be temporary, will it, or will it not, continue indefinitely?

Jack Straw: No, it will not continue indefinitely. It is not a satisfactory scheme; no one has ever suggested that it was. It is, however, better than the alternatives that the Conservative Administration used, just for the record. It certainly will not be continued indefinitely, and I will seek to end it as soon as I judge that we have sufficient capacity. That is why we have been increasing the capacity of the Prison Service far faster than previous Administrations have done.

Dominic Grieve: As there have been three murders, two rapes and many more serious offences committed by criminals who were released early under the Government's end of custody licence scheme, will the Secretary of State tell the House what assessment he has made of the likely number of such offences that will be committed by such offenders who will be released under the scheme in 2009?

Jack Straw: First, may I congratulate the hon. and learned Gentleman on his first appearance in Justice questions? Secondly, the reoffending rate under the scheme has been pretty consistent. I am sure that he has the extrapolations written on his pad and will give them a wide audience in a moment. Thirdly, of course it is a matter of great regret and deep concern whenever there is reoffending from prison, but in quite a number of those cases, particularly in the serious cases, there is evidence to suggest that the offence would have been committed in any event. That was certainly the view of the trial judge in one of the worst cases, that of the Andrew Mournian murder.

Dominic Grieve: I thank the Secretary of State for his welcome, but he cannot escape the fact that the offences, including murder, were committed by people who were released early under his scheme. That says volumes about the Government's assessment of the need to protect the public. Is it not his intention to institutionalise, not end, early release through proposals in the Coroners and Justice Bill that will require sentencing to be conditioned by the cost of the sentence? That will make sure that, in future, Government expediency is placed in front of criminal justice.

Jack Straw: The hon. and learned Gentleman has a very short memory—I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but my comments are relevant to the Conservatives' suggestion that only we have faced this problem. Other Administrations have had to resort to such measures. Some 3,000 prisoners were released between July and August 1987. As for the hon. and learned Gentleman's key question, if he wishes to table amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill, we look forward to considering them. I have made it clear that there is no prospect whatsoever, nor is it Government policy, that at the point of sentencing, sentencers should have to take into account the resource costs of what they are proposing. That is not in the Bill, nor is it Government policy.

Mental Health Tribunals

David Taylor: What recent discussions he has had with the chief executive of the Tribunals Service on the operation of mental health tribunals.

Bridget Prentice: The chief executive of the Tribunals Service has regular meetings with Ministers to discuss the service and its performance, including that of mental health tribunals.

David Taylor: Mental health tribunals are important for dispensing justice, but a constituent queries with me their ability also to operate impartially. If patients agree that they are psychotic, they are so judged. If they disagree, they are said to have no insight into their condition and are found to be psychotic. What consideration have the Government given to reviewing the whole process to address concerns that patients subject to a tribunal do not have guaranteed access to specialist legal advice, and that the panel composition militates against objective assessment of the facts of each case?

Bridget Prentice: I am concerned about the example that my hon. Friend gives. If he wishes to come to see me to discuss it, I will be more than happy to do so. There are, however, two things that I would say to him. There is legal representation available for mental health proceedings at the first-tier tribunal, and there is also legal aid available at the upper tribunal. There are about 1,100 members of the tribunal, and they are split more or less evenly across the three disciplines that they are meant to represent.

Coroners' Courts

Andrew Turner: What recent assessment he has made of access to coroners' court services in small towns and rural areas; and if he will make a statement.

Michael Wills: We intend to review current coroner boundaries in consultation with local authorities as part of implementing the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is before Parliament. The review will take full account of local needs.

Andrew Turner: I am sure the Minister agrees that public access to a coroner is important for justice. Does he agree that we must retain at least a part-time coroner on the Isle of Wight?

Michael Wills: I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I can assure him that as part of the review, there are no plans to do away with the presence of a coroner on the Isle of Wight.

James Gray: It is the number of rural coroners that is being cut from 112 currently sitting in 140 places to about 60. It is particularly they who are looking into military deaths, which may or may not be those that become secret proceedings in the future. The Secretary of State has gone to great lengths to say that only one or two a year would be heard in camera. Will the Minister give the House an example of one or two cases in recent years that were heard in public but which, under the new Act, would now be heard in secret?

Michael Wills: May I assure the hon. Gentleman that, in relation to the review, we are fully committed to making sure that local access to the coroner service is retained. If we move to larger coroner jurisdictions, that does not mean the end of part-time coroners, and it does not mean that anyone in a rural area or anyone else will be denied access to the coroner services that they receive at present.

Roger Williams: Already, the office of coroner for the county of Powys has been amalgamated with that of the coroner for Bridgend and the valleys. There is a feeling in Wales, and following on from the Coroners and Justice Bill, that there will be an over-centralisation of the service in Wales. Given the sensitivity that inquests often give rise to, will the Minister confirm that the issues raised by hon. Members, particularly that of rurality, will be looked into before the implementation of the Act?

Michael Wills: I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. It is fundamental, as I said, that people should continue to have access to the coroner service locally. We understand that that has particular resonance in rural areas. No changes will be made without full consultation with everybody concerned, including hon. Members of the House.

Peter Bottomley: Helpfully, the Secretary of State has responded on the needs of families of deceased people when there is an inquest. Will his Department continue, with the Department for Work and Pensions, to make sure that the information on costs and allowances available to the families of those who have died becomes as easily available through a coroner's office as it is through a registrar of deaths?

Michael Wills: I am happy to give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman.

Stephen Ayre

Philip Davies: If he will refer the case of Stephen Ayre to the chief inspector of probation.

Shahid Malik: Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation, has already examined the serious case review into the case; it was conducted by the West Yorkshire strategic management board for multi-agency public protection arrangements, or MAPPA. I had discussions with Mr. Bridges yesterday and he confirmed that the shortcomings in practice were properly evident in the review. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice has asked Mr. Bridges for an assessment, based on two inspections, of the quality of the supervision of offenders such as Mr. Ayre by the area MAPPA system. Mr. Bridges is completing that assessment.

Philip Davies: As the Minister will know, Stephen Ayre was a convicted murderer who was let out of prison and who, three years ago, after repeated mistakes by the probation service, raped and abducted a 10-year-old boy in my constituency. The Secretary of State talks a lot about how he will put the victims at the centre of his Department. However, despite having met the father of the victim, he still refuses to release the internal report into the case—even to the family, let alone the public. As the Secretary of State knows, the parents cannot feel that they can get over what happened to their son until they have seen the full report. If the right hon. Gentleman will not release the full report to the family, the least that he could do is ask the chief inspector of probation to produce a report and put it in the public domain to help the family get over that appalling incident.

Shahid Malik: We all accept that it was an appalling episode. The purpose of any review is to identify faults. The chief inspector of probation is clear that the faults have been identified. Indeed, the overview report was presented to the young victim's father.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Secretary of State has taken a personal interest; he met the victim's father on 18 June 2008. A number of things flowed from that: expedited support and counselling for the victim; an overview report to be prepared by the West Yorkshire MAPPA and shared with the victim's father; and the inspection by staff from the National Offender Management Service public protection unit of a sample of cases in west Yorkshire to ensure that they are being well managed. More generally, my right hon. Friend decided that from December 2008, in respect of all MAPPA serious case reviews, we will share an overview report with the victim and the victim's family.
	The hon. Gentleman is wrong to suggest that victims are not at the centre of this Administration. In 2008, there were 4 million fewer victims of crime compared with 1998, and we have significantly increased investment thresholds to support victims. That speaks volumes about our commitment to victims and to putting them at the centre of the criminal justice system.

Sentences (Multiple Rape)

David Davies: What recent guidance the Sentencing Advisory Panel has issued on sentences for those convicted of multiple rape; and if he will make a statement.

Maria Eagle: In April 2007, the independent Sentencing Guidelines Council published definitive guidelines on the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That included a guideline on the offence of rape, including when it is carried out by more than one offender and including multiple offences carried out by the same offender. The Sentencing Guidelines Council took the Sentencing Advisory Panel's advice into consideration when it formulated the guidance.

David Davies: Two weeks ago, six men were sentenced for multiple rape. They gang-raped a 16-year-old girl with learning difficulties and for that they received between six and nine years—of course, they will serve only half that time. I notice that the Minister did not give me a straightforward answer. As far as I can ascertain from the SAP guidelines, the starting point for multiple rape is eight years in prison. Why, then, were those men given six, seven or eight years, and why were the aggravating factors, which are clearly shown in the SAP guidance, not taken into account? I am thinking of the age of the victim, the fact that she was raped on several occasions and the grievous attack with caustic soda that was carried out on her afterwards. Will the Minister support my recent letter to the Solicitor-General asking that the case be reviewed so that those men are given the sentence that they deserve?

Maria Eagle: As the hon. Gentleman suggests in a roundabout way, the Attorney-General has the power to refer back to the courts sentences that she believes to be overly lenient. She is considering this at present. I cannot say more to him about this case, although I accept what he said about its seriousness.

Fiona Mactaggart: But is not the problem for many victims of rape the fact that in the UK we still have an average conviction rate of 6 per cent. and that many victims of this heinous crime do not see their offender brought to justice? What action are my hon. Friend's Department and other Departments taking to ensure that offenders in the crime of rape are brought to justice?

Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend is correct to suggest that the number of complaints to the police about rape that result in prosecution is quite small. However, that is often because those who have been victimised do not feel able to go through with the prosecution. The current statistics are that 37 per cent. of all cases prosecuted as rape result in a conviction for rape, that 59 per cent. of cases prosecuted as rape result in a conviction for rape or another offence, and that 97 per cent. of those so convicted have a custodial sentence imposed. This is the highest conviction rate for 10 years.
	I accept, however, that we need to do more in supporting victims and those who complain of these terrible crimes through what can be the terrible ordeal of going through the criminal justice system. We have extended the support available to women—and men, of course, who can also be subjected to this terrible offence—by providing sexual assault referral centres across England and Wales, more access to support, and a better understanding among prosecutors and police about how to deal with the victims of these offences. That is showing an increase in conviction rates, as indicated in the statistics.

Angela Watkinson: The provisions of the Coroners and Justice Bill include replacing the Sentencing Advisory Panel with a sentencing council that will have mandatory powers. However, the circumstances and levels of criminality vary enormously from case to case, and judges use their discretion to ensure that the appropriate sentence is given in the light of their experience and knowledge. Do the Justice Secretary and the Minister agree that the independence of the judiciary is an important part of our constitution and that it should not be eroded by a quango?

Maria Eagle: I agree with that absolutely. That is in fact Government policy. The new sentencing council will not in any way fetter the individual decisions of sentencers, whether they be judges or magistrates, in the work that they do in our courts. It will have a judicial majority and will be chaired by a judge. I believe that that independence, vital to our system, will be guaranteed; it is certainly Government policy that it ought to be.

Departmental Funding Settlement

Tony Baldry: What services and policy initiatives will be affected by the funding settlement reached for his Department for 2009 to 2011.

Jack Straw: On 19 January, I published to Parliament the Ministry of Justice's corporate plan. The plan is based on my Department's four strategic objectives and sets out what we aim to achieve, how, and with what resources. Further details of the financial allocations are given in chapter 6 of the plan.

Tony Baldry: Last year, the Secretary of State's permanent secretary, Suma Chakrabarti, told to the Justice Committee that by December the Department would have a much better idea of what cuts it needed to make to live within its means. One assumes that that will result in some cuts in front-line services. Perhaps the Secretary of State could help the House by giving some indication of where those cuts are going to fall. Could he give me an undertaking that one of the cuts will not be the closure of the probation service office in Banbury, because that would be a very retrograde step for offender management in the north of Oxfordshire?

Jack Straw: The corporate plan makes it clear that we are indeed seeking some reductions and savings—that is on the record before Parliament—including a 5 per cent. real-terms reduction in our administration budget. However, we are seeking to do that principally by taking out back-office functions, by cutting down on what I think the House would regard as unnecessary spending, and by reducing the use of agency and contract staff. The whole purpose of this—the same is true, for example, overall in the National Offender Management Service—is to do our very best to ensure that front-line services are properly protected. There are always better ways of delivering front-line services. If the performance of the probation services are compared area to area and within areas, it is clear that there is not necessarily a connection between inputs in terms of resources and their outputs in terms of caseload and reductions in reoffending.

Philip Dunne: I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State had to say about potential cuts to the probation service. Can he reassure the House that the probation service will not suffer cuts that would limit its capacity to monitor and maintain community service orders? In West Mercia, initial indications show that as many as 42 probation officers could be at risk.

Jack Straw: We do not believe that that is the case. There will be a requirement on probation services, and others, to reduce their administrative costs and to look at new ways of working. For example, they might produce briefer reports for courts and so on. We have actually put extra money into the front-line delivery of high-end community penalties. The whole purpose of that is to make the system more efficient and more effective.

Alan Beith: How much worse will resource problems be as a result of the alarming state of some of the Department's IT projects? Will some have to be abandoned or cut in order to stay within limits?

Jack Straw: The corporate plan takes account of the reality of our IT plans.

Edward Garnier: It really is pushing it to say that the Secretary of State has IT plans if we bear in mind that the National Audit Office criticised his Department for trebling the cost—to £690 million—of the C-NOMIS IT project. It is also true that the Government have spent £50 million on accommodating prisoners in police stations and court cells, £131 million on doing up the Secretary of State's offices, and £27 million on external consultants in the past year. Instead of wasting that money, those millions would have been better spent on not introducing the core day, which leads to the locking up of prisoners between lunchtime on Friday and breakfast time on Mondays, on dealing with prisoner overcrowding and with prisoner rehabilitation and on encouraging purposeful activity and education in prisons.

Jack Straw: I do not mind taking lectures from some parts of the House about our budget, but it does not lie well in the mouth of the hon. and learned Gentleman or those in his party to criticise the savings that we have to make, because their only response is to say that they would cut even more. That is the straightforward reality; they would cut at least £100 million from the Ministry of Justice's budget.

Sentences (Violent Crime)

Sharon Hodgson: Whether his Department takes steps to inform the public of sentences handed down to people convicted of violent crime.

Bridget Prentice: The outcomes of criminal justice cases are provided free of charge to local newspapers, which play a key role in providing information to their communities. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already announced that he intends to publish the final outcome of criminal court hearings on a public-facing website.

Sharon Hodgson: That will be welcome news for the victims of crime, but does the Minister agree that if there is to be any potential deterrent effect for those who may commit such crimes, they need to see that information. I cannot imagine that many of them will go online to see what their sentence may be. Will the Minister consider using a poster campaign, or taking out adverts in national newspapers, so that perpetrators know that they will be caught, and know what the consequences will be for their own lives?

Bridget Prentice: My hon. Friend has offered a helpful and constructive suggestion, and we shall certainly look at it. I have seen national advertising campaigns in London on gun and knife crime, for example, that are very effective. In my area of Lewisham, the safer neighbourhood team included information in its quarterly newsletter to residents on people who were caught and convicted, and on the resulting sentences. We should consider matters as widely as possible to ensure that everyone, victims and offenders, is aware of the real cost of crime.

Shop Theft

Anne McIntosh: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on guidelines to prevent re-offending by those convicted of shop theft.

Jack Straw: As a matter of course, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and I consider the guidelines and offer comments when they are subject to consultation. The guideline on theft makes it clear that a fine should be the starting point for an opportunistic theft from a shop, for example, but that custody is the appropriate starting point for those involved in gang-related shop theft. Following discussions with the hon. Lady and representatives of the retail industry and the police, revised guidance on the use of fixed penalty notices for shop theft are due to be issued shortly. We accept that there are plainly instances of the guidance not being followed, and that penalty notices for disorder are not appropriate for repeat offences or, normally, if the value of the property involved exceeds £100.

Anne McIntosh: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that full reply. I know that he recently met the Magistrates Association, which is deeply concerned about fines being imposed for a shop theft that might be fuelling a drug or drink habit. Will he use his good offices to intervene in the issuing of guidelines, to ensure that that set of circumstances will be met and that there will be a referral to court where appropriate?

Jack Straw: Yes, and I commend the hon. Lady for her work on this matter and the way in which she has drawn it to the attention of the House and me. I recently met the Magistrates Association and the association of chairs of benches of magistrates—[Hon. Members: "Chairs of benches?"] Well, they were the chairmen of benches, some of whom were female.
	The guidance is clear, stating at paragraph 6.21, that PND disposal for shop theft
	"may not be appropriate for those who are known to be substance misusers."
	There are two issues here. The first is whether the guidance should be changed, and we do intend to change it. The second, whatever the guidance, is ensuring that the police follow it properly and that there is a proper audit of what they are doing.

Topical Questions

Willie Rennie: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Jack Straw: I am pleased to tell the House that this morning, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), announced further progress building on the implementation of the Corston report recommendations on women within the criminal justice system. Some £15.5 million of new money will be spent over two years on additional services in the community for women, with the aim of cutting their reoffending and reducing the need to imprison women convicted of less serious offences.

Willie Rennie: That is very welcome, but when innocent people are wrongly imprisoned, it is a traumatic experience that can scar them for life. When they are released, they often receive little support other than a helpline, which is welcome but not sufficient. Will the Minister meet me, a cross-party delegation of Members and Paddy Hill and Gerry Conlon of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, to consider their proposal for a refuge that will give such people the residential, in-depth support that they need and deserve?

David Hanson: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments. Of course, I and my ministerial colleagues will happily meet him, because how individuals are reintegrated back into society, particularly when they have been proved innocent, is an important issue.

Hugh Bayley: The Public Administration Committee has called for a mandatory register of lobbying activity by professional lobbyists, companies and pressure groups. I believe that there needs to be a legal duty to register in order to prevent lobbyists from claiming that they have a duty of confidentiality to their shareholders or clients. Will the Secretary of State consider legislating to create such a register in the forthcoming constitutional renewal Bill?

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend will accept that the principal responsibility for the regulation of this House, as with the other place, lies with the House itself and not with Government. We look forward to recommendations from the Standards and Privileges Committee. It goes without saying that should there be a proposal for such changes that commands widespread support across the House, we shall consider it.

Greg Mulholland: Last year, the Secretary of State and I exchanged letters about the historic failings at Leeds magistrates court. He made it clear that all the answers that the public demanded would be provided. That has not happened and there is genuine consternation among the legal community in Leeds that the matter was tackled by scapegoating one individual. Some of the key answers to the problem, including what was meant by the fabrication of court outcomes and the number of convicted criminals who have not been followed up, have not been given to the people of Leeds. When will those answers be given?

Jack Straw: Let me make it clear that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), who was the Minister responsible, and I did a huge amount of work on what happened in Leeds, which was a scandal. It arose when West Yorkshire magistrates courts committee ran the magistrates court service in Leeds; central Government had no direct responsibility whatsoever. It has fallen to us to sort out the mess that the lack of proper leadership, control and management by the magistrates courts committee and the officials in that system created. We have been trying to sort out the problem. Of course, I am happy to discuss with the hon. Gentleman any further information that should be released. I cannot comment on the disciplinary process, but the responsibility for a scandalous situation must rest where it began—in Leeds.

Gordon Prentice: Is not it simply unacceptable for tax exiles to bankroll political parties? Will the Secretary of State support the amendments that I have tabled to the Political Parties and Elections Bill to make the practice unlawful?

Jack Straw: When it comes to Report, we will actively consider precisely what my hon. Friend proposes.

Jo Swinson: Recent events have shown the clear and urgent need to clean up our political system, so I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he will consider introducing measures that command widespread support. May I therefore urge him to include in the constitutional renewal Bill a provision that has widespread support and for which the House has already voted—that for an elected House of Lords?

Jack Straw: The House has indeed already voted on that proposal, as it has on the proposal for an 80 per cent. elected House of Lords. We have moved to a substantial cross-party consensus, as the White Paper, which I published last July, shows. Although we can introduce some measures in the remainder of this Parliament, conducting a full-blooded, root-and-branch reform of the House of Lords at this stage would be pushing it without full support from all parties.

John Heppell: The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 came into force only in November. Although I acknowledge that it is still early days, has the Secretary of State made any assessment of its effectiveness and progress?

Bridget Prentice: My hon. Friend makes the fair point that the Act is very young. We will keep a close eye on it and monitor its success. Eleven cases have been considered under it since November, including that of a 16-year-old and, of course, that of the doctor who was returned from Bangladesh. Even in a short time, the Act has already been successful in ensuring that those who are vulnerable and coerced into a marriage against their will are given the protection of the law.

Ben Wallace: The Justice Secretary is answerable to the House for party funding. An investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Electoral Commission has already found the right hon. Gentleman to have broken his own law, and he is currently under investigation by the Electoral Commission for perhaps taking an impermissible donation. Given that he is in charge of trying to reform party donations and Parliament, would not being found guilty a second time undermine his credibility? Should he not seriously consider his position?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman has made two complaints against me. In the first case, there was a breach, but the Standards and Privileges Committee found it to be wholly inadvertent, and I apologised for it. If he is proceeding with the second, that will be the subject of investigation in the normal way.

David Kidney: Does the Secretary of State share my pleasure at the public comments of the new Director of Public Prosecutions about the possibility of having more openness in the criminal justice system, by letting in the TV cameras in more circumstances than we currently allow? Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should let in the TV cameras to open up the criminal justice system to a wider audience?

Jack Straw: I of course commend the new director's policy of greater openness. However, there are slightly complicated issues when it comes to having cameras in trial courts. The proceedings of the Law Lords at the point of judgment are already televised and the proceedings of the supreme court, when it starts across the road in October, will also be televised. However, the House would wish to consider long and hard before going down the route of some but not all American states and televising court proceedings. That could cause many more problems than it would seek to solve.

Laurence Robertson: In an earlier answer, to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), the Justice Secretary accepted that sometimes the sentencing guidelines were not being followed in cases of shop theft. Does he feel that they are being adequately followed for burglary? We have recently seen a rise in the number of burglaries, which is not a minor offence but a serious one that causes a great deal of pain and disruption. Is there any more that he can do to try to reduce its incidence in that respect?

Jack Straw: I say two things on burglary. One is that the decline in burglary over the past 12 years has been dramatic—it has gone down by, I think, more than 40 per cent. That has been a great success on the part of the police and the local authorities—we claim some credit for it, too—and a very important change in making people's dwelling houses far less vulnerable. Secondly, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, recently led the Court of Appeal criminal division to issue what amounts to very strong guidance to sentencers on burglary, particularly burglary of a dwelling. I think that we will see a toughening up of sentencing for burglary, and quite appropriately, too.

David Chaytor: The Government have put an enormous effort into speeding up judicial processes and strengthening the rights of victims. In respect of consumer protection legislation, does the Secretary of State think that there is a greater role for local authority trading standards authorities to play in mediating between consumers who feel aggrieved by a supplier of goods and services? Would that not be a way of keeping more cases out of court and of moving more quickly towards the speedy resolution of disputes?

Jack Straw: There is great merit in the suggestion that my hon. Friend makes and I will certainly consider it, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Tobias Ellwood: May I draw the Secretary of State's attention to Question 19 and ask whether he will allow Bournemouth's court cells to be used by Bournemouth's police to detain suspected offenders? The police cells and the court cells are part of the same building. More police cells are being built, but unfortunately they currently get full—for example on a Friday night—and the police have to drive those who have been arrested all the way to Weymouth. There seems to be a lot of red tape, so I would be grateful if the Secretary of State looked into that.

David Hanson: I hope that I can offer the hon. Gentleman a helpful answer. Dorset police force has been given permission to use the cells at Bournemouth magistrates court at weekends during peak summer months, pending the completion of its custody suite. The points that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned are valid, and the cells in Bournemouth will have a greater call on them than is normal, particularly during the summer.

Paul Flynn: What effect will the reclassification of cannabis have on the overcrowding of our jails?

Jack Straw: I doubt that it will have any particular effect. As my hon. Friend knows, the reclassification has led to a proposal that for a first offence, a penalty notice would be issued, consistent with the guidelines for penalty notices.

Mark Lancaster: Why does the Secretary of State's Department refuse to engage with local communities when deciding on new locations for bail hostels?

David Hanson: The Department and ClearSprings do engage with local councils. I have been very clear that since June last year, we have had to have discussions with the local council, the local police and the local probation board. From all such properties throughout England and Wales, roughly 7 per cent. of houses have attracted complaints from local councils or other organisations or individuals to date. The scheme is working quite successfully throughout the country, although in some small instances there will be difficulties.

Andrew MacKinlay: Will the Justice Secretary reflect on the fact that, when a Prime Minister parachutes somebody into the House of Lords simply because he requires that person to be a Minister, it seems absurd and unfair to ordinary citizens that that person should remain a Member of Parliament in perpetuity? Surely those Ministers should cease to be Members of the House of Lords when, after 12 months, they give up? There is a precedent for this, because the bishops are not there for life—they are there only for the duration of their time as a diocesan bishop—and the same applies to the Law Lords. If my right hon. Friend agrees about this, can we incorporate the appropriate measures into this great legislative reform, when we get round to it?

Jack Straw: It goes without saying that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's appointments of Ministers who have then been promoted to the House of Lords have involved people who can make a continuing contribution to the other place—

Andrew MacKinlay: For ever?

Jack Straw: For many years to come. However, there is much in my hon. Friend's point, and it was considered at some length by the joint cross-party group on House of Lords reform, which I chaired. I am quite sure that it will be an issue when—not if—this House finally considers the whole issue of House of Lords reform.

Simon Hughes: Given how few Government Bills have been programmed for this Session, will the Lord Chancellor proceed to introduce legislation if those on the Conservative Front Bench confirm their agreement to replacing an unelected second Chamber with an elected second Chamber?

Jack Straw: If the hon. Gentleman looked around him, he would see that what he is proposing is a hypothesis that is unlikely to turn into a reality.

Patrick Cormack: Will the Lord High Chancellor go very cautiously on that one? Will he also accept that, in the Bill introduced into the other place by Lord Steel, a number of anomalies in the present House—which is a very good House—are addressed? Will he support Lord Steel's Bill, as the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee has commended?

Jack Straw: I accept that a number of discrete proposals in the Bill are certainly worthy of support across the House. As the hon. Gentleman knows, however, the reason all three parties in this House have been reluctant to support Lord Steel's Bill is the high suspicion that his real purpose was to kick any greater reform of the House of Lords into touch. Many of us think that some of his proposed changes are necessary, but that they are by no means a sufficient part of a major reform of the Lords.

BILLS PRESENTED

Employment Rights Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
	Mr. William Cash, supported by Mr. Michael Ancram, Mr. John Redwood, Mr. Peter Lilley, Mr. Graham Brady, Mr. Christopher Chope, Mr. Bernard Jenkin, Philip Davies, Mr. Nigel Evans and Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory, presented a Bill to provide that, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, workers or members of a trade union who are UK nationals shall have rights of employment in the United Kingdom equal to or as favourable as those afforded to foreign nationals or conferred by the United Kingdom Parliament.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 February, and to be printed (Bill 53).

Protection of Garden Land (development Control) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
	Mr. Paul Burstow, supported by Tom Brake, Lorely Burt, Andrew George, Susan Kramer and Mr. Edward Davey, presented a Bill to protect private gardens from development which is out of character with the surrounding area; to make provision about the circumstances in which a planning application may be rejected by a local authority and about rights of appeal in such circumstances; to prohibit repeated planning applications in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 20 March, and to be printed (Bill 54).

Home Repossession (Protection)

Motion for leave to introduce a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

Andrew Dismore: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law of Property Act 1925 to require a mortgagee to obtain the court's permission before exercising the power of sale, where the mortgaged land consists of or includes a dwelling-house; to make certain powers available to the court in actions by mortgagees for possession of a dwelling-house; and for connected purposes.
	This Bill is about a very important human right: the right not to be thrown out of one's home without a court order. It is a right that affects millions of people, and it is of even greater importance in times of economic downturn such as these. However, it is a right that we simply do not have in this country. A recent court judgment now allows unscrupulous lenders to sell people's homes over their heads, without having first to go to court, when even just one mortgage payment has been missed.
	The number of home repossessions resulting from defaults on mortgage repayments has increased dramatically in recent months. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 45,000 homes were expected to have been repossessed by the end of last year, and 75,000 this year. The number of people in mortgage arrears rose to 168,000. The Financial Services Authority and the Council of Mortgage Lenders report that more than 1 million households are likely to default on a mortgage payment in the next year.
	The Government have responded to the rising tide of home repossessions with admirable speed and decisiveness. The Prime Minister told the House on 22 October that new guidance had been given to county court judges to ensure that repossession of people's and families' homes was undertaken only as a matter of last resort. About a month later, on 19 November, the new pre-action protocol on seeking possession based on mortgage arrears came into force. Its purpose is to ensure that lenders and borrowers act fairly and reasonably with each other to resolve any matter concerning mortgage arrears. The Government have also introduced support for mortgage interest through the income support system, which has been improved. There is also the mortgage rescue scheme for vulnerable people and the home owner's mortgage support scheme.
	In the meantime, however, in a case involving Horsham Properties, the High Court ruled at the beginning of October last year that lenders—banks, building societies and investment companies—were entitled to sell properties, including people's family homes, without having first to go to court for an order, following just a single default on a mortgage payment. That objective has been achieved as a consequence of the mortgage small print—according to the judge, "conveyancing shorthand"—that is in practically every mortgage deed, in combination with section 101 of the Law of Property Act 1925.
	The purchaser of the property who is the new owner—very likely another faceless, compassionless investment company—is then entitled to a summary possession order against the borrower, the householder. The householder is now considered by the law to be a trespasser in his or her own home, which they no longer own. There is no defence in law against that claim. The new pre-action protocol and all the other forms of support that I have mentioned are therefore easily circumvented by unscrupulous lenders who invoke their power to sell the property in this way, without first having to go to court.
	Both the Financial Services Authority and the Council of Mortgage Lenders have reported that UK sub-prime lenders have been taking an increasingly aggressive approach to repossessions, and predict that this trend is only likely to increase as economic conditions worsen. Hundreds of thousands of people and their families are therefore at serious risk of being thrown out of their homes, without first having had any opportunity whatever to put their point of view to a judge or to try to persuade the court that it is neither fair nor reasonable to evict them.
	My Bill will reverse the High Court's judgment. It requires that lenders—sub-prime or otherwise—first obtain the court's permission, before they can call in their security by selling a property that is somebody's home. It will ensure that the court that hears the lender's application will have the power to delay the sale of the property and to give the borrower more time to repay, if that is appropriate in all the circumstances. It does not guarantee that people can stay in their homes indefinitely if they cannot pay the mortgage, but it does ensure that people have an opportunity to persuade an independent court that it is far too early, or disproportionate, to throw them into the street—with bags, baggage, furniture and kids' toys—at the whim of a hard-bitten property company.
	Most people might have thought they had protection against this sort of thing happening but, as a result of last October's court case, they simply do not. It is truly shocking that in Britain in 2009, such a basic legal protection for home owners is not already part of our law, especially when human rights law requires there to be such protection.
	The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled in a case against the UK— McCann  v. UK—that the right to respect for one's home, guaranteed by article 8 of the European convention, includes such protection. It said:
	"The loss of one's home is a most extreme form of interference with the right to respect for the home. Any person at risk of an interference of this magnitude should in principle be able to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal in the light of the relevant principles under Article 8 of the Convention, notwithstanding that, under domestic law, his right of occupation has come to an end... the applicant was dispossessed of his home without any possibility to have the proportionality of the measure determined by an independent tribunal. It follows that, because of the lack of adequate procedural safeguards, there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention in the instant case."
	Article 11 of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights also protects the right to housing. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has interpreted this in its general comments to include a right to due process and appropriate procedural safeguards before being evicted from one's home.
	In our recent report on "A Bill of Rights for the UK?", the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, recommended that one of the rights that should be protected in any UK Bill of Rights was the right to housing. We suggested in our "draft outline Bill of Rights", the inclusion of provisions to the effect that
	"everyone is entitled to be secure in the occupancy of their home"
	and
	"no one may be evicted from their home without an order of a court."
	Those provisions were modelled on the right to housing in the international covenant on economic and social rights and on the equivalent provision in the South African Bill of Rights.
	Of course, not everyone agrees with the Joint Committee that a Bill of Rights should include protection for such social and economic rights. However, if the United Kingdom had a Bill of Rights that included such provisions, our courts would not have been able to interpret the law in the way they did in this appalling case, thus allowing lenders to cash in on their security by selling people's homes without first having to obtain a court's agreement that such a drastic step was proportionate in the circumstances. Until we have such a Bill of Rights, there is absolutely nothing to stop our courts giving the highest priority to the rights of banks over the rights of ordinary people to a fair hearing before they lose their homes.
	This example of home repossession provides a good practical example of the way in which a Bill of Rights protecting social and economic rights such as the right to housing—including the right to minimum procedural safeguards before eviction from one's home—could defend hundreds of thousands of ordinary people against more powerful interests at times of economic hardship. It shows that human rights are, and should be, universal. They are not a villains' charter; they are for the middle-class professional struggling with a mortgage just as much as for the council or private tenant with rent arrears when each falls on hard times. No one should lose his or her home without good reason, without proper and fair justification, and without an impartial court hearing.
	This problem is immediate and it is urgent. The judge in the Horsham Properties case said that it was a matter for Parliament to resolve. In the absence of the Bill of Rights that I advocated, there is no alternative but to try to change the law through this Bill, which amends the Law of Property Act 1925.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	That Mr. Andrew Dismore, Mr Virendra Sharma, Shona McIsaac, John Austin, Mike Gapes, Ms Karen Buck, Siobhain McDonagh, Judy Mallaber, Rob Marris, Mr. Chris Mullin and Dr. Evan Harris present the Bill.
	Mr. Andrew Dismore accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 June, and to be printed (Bill 52).

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[4th Allotted Day]

Skills and Further Education

Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected the Prime Minister's amendment to both the motions that are to be debated today.

David Willetts: I beg to move,
	That this House regrets that the number of young people not in education, employment or training in England has grown from 686,000 to 850,000 since 2000, that the number of adult learner places has fallen by 1.3 million in just two years, and that the number of UK students enrolled at university is now falling; notes that current policies are hindering training opportunities by cutting support for second-chance students, placing too much emphasis on paper-based qualifications rather than raising skills, imposing too many bureaucratic obstacles on employers wishing to offer apprenticeships and freezing the further education capital spending programme despite the Prime Minister's commitment to bring forward capital projects; believes that providing improved opportunities to up-skill and re-skill is more important than ever given the challenges posed by the recession; and calls on the Government to boost the number of apprenticeships, provide more support to young people not in employment, education or training, help small and medium-sized employers access training, improve opportunities for adult learners, and introduce an all-age careers service.
	These are tough times. Our challenge is, of course, to emerge from this recession with a better-balanced and stronger economy, which means an economy that has invested properly in skills. In order to assess the challenges that we face, we should review the record of the past 10 years to see how we managed to prepare ourselves for the tough years ahead during the boom years, which are now dismissed as the age of irresponsibility. Those were the years when employment was rising but the number of young people not in education, employment or training, or NEETs, also rose, from 660,000 in 1997 to 780,000 10 years later, an increase of 18 per cent.
	That is what we were doing in the good times. We also know what we were doing in comparison with other advanced western countries. A valuable report from the OECD entitled "Jobs for Youth" records our performance during the growth years compared with the performances of those other countries. Again, the story is very clear. While our rate for NEETs was getting worse and worse, the rate across the OECD on the very same measure was improving. Having been better than the OECD average at the start of Labour's time in office, after 10 years our rate was below that average.
	The unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds rose in Britain from 13.4 per cent. in 1997 to 14.4 per cent. in 2007. In other words, youth unemployment was higher by the end of the boom years. By contrast, across the OECD as a whole the average youth unemployment rate fell from 15.6 to 13.4 per cent. In other words, we entered the boom years with a youth unemployment performance that was better than the OECD average, and we now enter the recession with a performance that is worse.

Adrian Bailey: In his plethora of statistics, the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the historical record of the unknown, as opposed to the known, NEETs. Will he compliment Connexions in the black country, which has bucked the national statistical trend by both getting an increased number of 16 to 18-year-olds into training and work, thereby reducing the number of NEETs, and, in Sandwell, lowering the percentage of unknowns? It has therefore managed to improve statistics in both those areas.

David Willetts: That was an excellent speech. I happily congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the performance of the Connexions service in his area, especially as he made the crucial point when he described its performance as bucking the national trend, because it is precisely the national trend that we are focusing on in this debate.
	If we had predicted in 1997 that we would be in the situation that we are now in, nobody would have believed us. If we had said that after 10 years of economic growth, and even after all the well-intentioned initiatives such as the new deal, we would have more young people not in education, employment or training and more youth unemployment than when the Labour Government came to power, Labour Members would not have accepted our forecast, but that is exactly what has happened.

David Taylor: I spent many years working in further education, and I recall that, in the period leading up to 1997, FE was left to go to rack and ruin; indeed, there was no capital spend towards the end of that period. One day when he has a spare moment or two, will the hon. Gentleman come with me to the A511 just a little north of Coalville town centre to have a look at the magnificent Stephenson college, named after George Stephenson, that has been built there, and which is having a huge impact on FE in Leicestershire? We will then see whether he can still read with a straight face the following phrases in the Conservative motion:
	"current policies are hindering training opportunities...freezing the further education capital spending programme".
	What hypocrisy! If I were allowed to say that, that is the word I would use.

Mr. Speaker: Order. "Hypocrisy" is not a term we should use in the Chamber.

David Taylor: I withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. Let me add that an intervention should not be taken as an opportunity to make a speech; it should be brief.

David Willetts: I will happily accompany the hon. Gentleman on a visit to his FE college if he will come with me and some of my hon. Friends to visit all the FE colleges whose governing bodies are now in little short of a state of crisis as their capital spending plans have been held up by this Government. That is the crisis in FE that we are drawing attention to, and it is causing a great deal of concern across the FE sector.

David Burrowes: On 12 February, the Secretary of State will have an opportunity to visit Southgate college and there to hear of the plans for an £80 million development that would transform the college and make it a community hub. Sadly, however, the rug has been pulled from under its feet, because the capital approval has been withdrawn. That is the reality of the future facing what the Prime Minister said would be world-class accommodation.

David Willetts: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope to turn to this issue later in my remarks, because we very much hope to get clear information on it today from the Secretary of State so that our FE colleges know where they stand.
	We enter this recession with a weak position on skills, youth unemployment and young people not in education, employment or training. We need to learn the lessons from this policy failure so that we do not carry on making the same mistakes. There are several such lessons.

Patrick Cormack: May I most warmly commend my hon. Friend for the good sense both of his motion and his speech so far? However, as he has moved on to the subject of skills, may I kindly ask him to rediscover his legendary cerebral powers and make sure that future motions in the name of our party do not contain such appalling terms as "up-skill" and "re-skill"?

David Willetts: My hon. Friend is fighting a very important battle for common-sense English. I shall take careful account of the point he makes, and we shall try to do better.
	One of the reasons we face the problems that I am discussing is the policy mistakes made by this Government. One of those mistakes is, of course, the endless reorganisation of the world of skills. I am not going to give the House another potted history of the Government's measures —[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), says that he is relieved, but we are talking about his Government's measures: the abolition of the training and enterprise councils, at a cost of 62 million; the abolition of the Further Education Funding Council for England; and the creation of the Learning and Skills Council and its 47 different local LSC branches. They had to be abolished so that instead there could be nine regional centres and, of course, the LSC itself is to be abolished and replaced by three new bodies.
	In 10 years, we have seen a classic example of Labour's hyperactivity in its endlessly abolishing and reorganising things. The end result was very well put in the recent Simplification of Skills in England report, in a section entitled Rapidity of change, which stated that
	the rate of changes in programmes, initiatives, organisations and procedures adds a further dimension of confusion for employers, who can find it extremely difficult to keep up with change and even become aware of new developments, let alone understand them.
	One of the problems is the endless process of change and confusion, which means that it is very hard for individual employers, and for individual young people who are trying to increase their skills, to find their way through the system.
	Another problem has been the failure to reform our schools. As well as that schools failure, there is a skills failure: the failure to establish an effective skills policy that understands the difference between skills and qualifications. The Government have become obsessed with paying FE colleges to churn out paper qualifications, even if they are not valued by employers and even if they are not what young people or learners of all ages need. There is more to life, and indeed to education and skills training, than simply building up paper qualifications. It is because of the Government's obsession with paper qualifications that so many people have lost out.
	Adult learners have lost out, so I commend the excellent early-day motion signed by Members from all parts of the House on behalf of the Alliance for Lifelong Learning. Some hon. Members who are present have subscribed to the
	concern that over 1.4 million
	adult learner
	places have been lost in the last two years.
	We thought that the Labour party believed in adult learning; we thought that was one of the commitments and beliefs in the history of the Labour party. It is shocking to see this Government presiding over such a big decline in opportunities for adult learning across the country. The Government say that we do not need to worry because these are places for people to do basket weaving and belly dancing. Conservatives understand the value of those things

Patrick Cormack: indicated assent.

David Willetts: I see my hon. Friend nodding in assent to that proposition. It is very important that people have an opportunity to enjoy those sorts of skills and activities, but it is not just those activities, however worth while, that have sufferedmany that are of direct economic benefit have lost out as well.

Anne Snelgrove: rose

David Willetts: I shall give way, provided the hon. Lady is a little briefer than her two colleagues wereI would appreciate that.

Anne Snelgrove: I recall that when I was working as an adviser in Surrey county council in the 1980s and 1990s, the then Tory Government cut belly dancing and basket weaving classes. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman recalls that too?

David Willetts: I do not recall those exact details. My recollection is that if one examines the figures for adult learning places, one finds that there has clearly been a significant reduction in the past few years. That is a direct result of this Government's policies, and those reductions are not simply in respect of basket weaving and belly dancing.
	Only last week, I received a parliamentary answer to a question in which I asked Ministers to describe in detail the different types of learning opportunities that had been cut under this Government. It revealed that in 2004-05 the Learning and Skills Council funded 1,456,000 places studying information and computer technology, but many of those places were filled by people who were not necessarily going to get a paper qualification in the end, so the axe came down. So by 2007-08, the number of places had fallen to 590,000, which means that nearly 1 million places have been lost in the last three years.

Mark Lancaster: While the number of places has undoubtedly fallen, may I commend the proactive work of the Open university? It has recently introduced the Re-launch website which acts as a search engine to find both places and potential sources of finance?

David Willetts: I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend does on behalf of the Open university, which is based in his constituency. His point is well made and I strongly agree with him.

Anne Main: I draw my hon. Friend's attention to Oaklands college in my constituency, which provides many courses for severely disabled learners, who struggle desperately to get funding, especially those in the 19 to 21 age bracket who cannot access student grants. The Government have severely cut the support given to my local college.

David Willetts: My hon. Friend is right, and that is another example of the obsession with paper qualifications. I spoke recently to a student with learning difficulties who was studying horticulture at an FE college, but the course would not gain her an NVQ. The LSC decided that it would fund the course only if it resulted in a paper qualification, so her worthwhile activity was cut as a result of a policy decision by the Government, and they should be ashamed of that.

Tom Levitt: Does the hon. Gentleman regret the way in which the Conservative Government introduced the national curriculum into schools in the early 1980s? It had the effect of pushing vocational education off the curriculum and alienating a generation of less able children.

David Willetts: We are now digging into the distant past. In fact, I support the principle of a national curriculum. As the hon. Gentleman will know, over the years it has been amended and changed in the light of concerns such as the one that he has expressed. I am trying to draw attention to why the decisions made by the Government have meant that this nation is not investing in the skills that we need, especially now in these tough times of recession.

Mark Field: My hon. Friend has made a powerful case about elements of complacency in the lifelong learning agenda over the past 10 years, but I am sure that he and others would want to look to the future instead of going through the history. Does he agree that, in view of globalisation and the tumultuous economic events of recent months, which will have a great impact in the decades ahead, we now need to train and retrain for four or five different careers over a lifetime in work that may last for 50 years, depending on changes to the retirement age? That is important beyond the paper qualifications achieved at university and to those who may never go to university, but who will need skills in a career that may last many decades.

David Willetts: I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why many of my hon. Friends were shocked by a brutal answer from the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, in oral questions last week. We were talking about the importance of what are calledif I have permission from my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) to use the phrasegreen collar jobs. The Under-Secretary said that people could get such jobs only if they had studied a STEM subjectscience, technology, engineering and mathematicsat university. We then asked about retraining, including going back to university to get a new qualification that might help people to obtain one of those new jobs. Such opportunities have been cut yet again by the notorious equivalent level qualification cuts made by this Government. They simply do not get the importance of adult learning and giving people the opportunities to learn and reskill.

David Chaytor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: I have been generous in giving way, and I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a longstanding interest in this subject. However, after that I will try to make some progress.

David Chaytor: If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about adult training places, why is he proposing to cut 610 million from the budget?

David Willetts: No such cuts are proposed. We are refocusing the Train to Gain budget on what we think is the real need in our economy, which is more apprenticeships. Those are the proposals that my party has set out and they are the right policies for the economy.

John Denham: rose

David Willetts: I want to make some progress by inviting the Secretary of State, as he is about to intervene, to tell us more about the facts and figures behind the concern of many further education colleges across the country about the future of their capital spending plans. That is what we want to hear about today.

John Denham: Indeed, I shall do that in a moment. However, will the hon. Gentleman help us? The leader of his party announced billions of pounds of spending cuts for the next financial year. He protected some areas of spending but not this Department. That is where the 610 million of cuts comes from. Is the hon. Gentleman in complete denial about the promises made by the leader of his party on 5 January?

David Willetts: The leader of the Conservative party made it absolutely clear that there would be reductions in the growth rate of public expenditure in the financial year 2009-10. They are a proposal in aggregate. Where we would make those necessary savings if we were in government is a subject for careful consideration. That is the position. I want to hear about the Secretary of State's plans for the capital spending of FE colleges which are today trying to decide whether they should go ahead. We have already heard from several Conservative Members, but I shall quote to the Secretary of State some of the concerns that are being expressed in local papers. Let me quote from  The Argus in Brighton, for example. City college Brighton and Hove was
	approaching a key stage in its application for funding but will now face an anxious wait to see the LSC's next move...Plans for major work at Chichester College, Worthing College, Northbrook College in Worthing, Central Sussex College's Crawley campus
	and other colleges have also been affected. We have the same concerns about Wakefield college in Yorkshire and there are concerns in north Norfolk about an FE college there. We want to know from the Secretary of State

Mary Creagh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: If the hon. Lady is going to tell us what she is doing on behalf of her FE college, which is faced with capital cuts imposed by this Government, we shall be very interested to hear her.

Mary Creagh: I met the relevant Minister and representatives of Wakefield college less than a week ago, as soon as I was aware of the delay to the capital spending programme. I reinforce what I am sure my Front-Bench colleagues will say: this is a three-month review. It is a delay, not a capital cut. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues should be wary of exaggerating and causing greater anxiety up and down the country.

David Willetts: If I may say so, the anxiety is not created by us. There is real anxiety among people on the governing bodies of FE colleges and the principals of FE colleges who are approaching us and asking us to raise on their behalf a statement from the Government about what they are doing. Perhaps it was my eternal optimism, but I thought the Chancellor meant something when he said in his pre-Budget statement last November:
	I can announce today that 3 billion of capital spending will be brought forward from 2010-11 to this year and next.[ Official Report, 24 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 495.]
	I thought the Prime Minister meant it when he said in a speech on 5 January that
	we have...taken...tough decisions that will also benefit every region and nation of the UK to bring forward our capital spending programmes.
	If the Government are bringing forward capital spending, why is capital spending being delayed in the FE college sector?
	The Secretary of State said in answer to questions on the subject last week that we should not worry because it is all in the pipeline. His pipeline is about as reliable as the one bringing gas to the Ukraine. His pipeline is not delivering the capital projects that Conservative Members are fighting for on behalf of our FE colleges. If it is all so fine, why has the Secretary of State asked Sir Andrew Foster to review the matter? What is the purpose of calling for yet another review if it is not a recognition that there is a problem? We want to know how many capital projects proposed by FE colleges are affected, the size of the funds involved, and when the Department first knew about the problem.
	Another matter I want to refer to is the crisis involving wildcat action by workers in various parts of the country, which has been caused by their concern about what they believe to be the threat to their jobs from foreign workers. Clearly, we have to be very careful in how we approach this, as no hon. Member on either side of the House would have any truck with xenophobia. We believe in the free movement of goods, services and people around the EU, but perhaps the Secretary of State will illuminate the rather striking gap between what the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have said about the action. The Secretary of State for Health said:
	If workers are being brought across here on worse terms and conditions to actually get jobs in front of British workers...that would be wrong and I can understand the anger about that.
	However, the Business Secretary said in another place the following day that there was no problem with the EU rules on the free movement of labour. He said:
	The statement issued by Total last night confirmed that workers from overseas are paid at the same rate as other workers on the site.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 2 February 2009; Vol. 707, c. 473.]
	Being very generous-spirited, I shall take at face value the words of Lord Mandelsonand it is a long time since anyone has done thatabout what he had discovered and the confirmation from Total. If all that is so, however, what is the competitive advantage of the workers being brought in from abroad over the workers we have seen demonstrating and asking for their jobs? That is the crucial question, and the crucial clue is surely in what the Prime Minister said when trying to explain the slogantaken from the British National partythat passed his lips about British jobs for British workers.
	On The Politics Show of 1 February, the Prime Minister said:
	When I talked about British jobs, I was talking about giving people in Britain the skills, so that they have the ability to get jobs which were at present going to people from abroad.
	That was the Prime Minister's attempt to explain his egregious remark. If we take him at face value, the only explanation left for the failure of the workers we see protesting to get the jobs they hope to secure is the failure of his Government's policies on skills. That is the only explanation left if we accept what the Business Secretary said and what the Prime Minister has offered as the meaning of his remarks. He meant that he was going to raise the skills of British workers so that they could secure those jobs, and they are protesting because they cannot get them.

Gavin Strang: I know the hon. Gentleman wants to be constructive on this issue, and it is clear that we want more skilled people and that there are people in this country who need more skills if they are to compete in any labour market, be it in England, Scotland or elsewhere. I have no particular knowledge of these matters, but I want to make an observation about remuneration and the rates for the job. I do not know what arrangements are made for workers' accommodationfor instance, they may be put up in a large hulk or vesselso we must be careful about this matter. The real point is what they take home and what they can send home, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that we must be constructive in our approach. We want as many skilled people as possible in this country, and it does not matter whether they are 20 or 60.

David Willetts: The right hon. Gentleman's comments are a very salutary warning for Lord Mandelson, who should bear them in mind before he makes remarks such as the one that I cited about pay rates for workers from different countries.

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman represents the party that gave us Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, at a time when hundreds of thousands of British workers had to flee because there was no work for them here. He is talking about European directives, so can he confirm that, were his party to win power, its official policy would be to withdraw from the European social rights packages that are part of the law of this landyes or no?

David Willetts: We believe that that is one of the things that need to be looked at as part of a negotiation about how the EU can tackle the jobs crisis that it faces. I am trying to focus on the Prime Minister's words: his defence of the statement British jobs for British workers was that he meant that, by investing in more skills, we would be able to secure more British jobs for British workers. By its own measure, that approach has clearly failed.
	We need more apprenticeships, and we can finance them by refocusing the money in the Train to Gain budget; that would pay for more apprenticeships, especially for people aged over 19. Labour Members raised the issue of the age range of people studying. The difference between the funding for apprenticeships for those aged under 19 and those over 19 is a form of age discrimination that we do not think is right. We want to offer workers aged over 19 a better deal when it comes to apprenticeships. We also want to offer a better deal to small and medium-sized enterprises. We believe that that, too, could be financed by a refocusing of the Train to Gain budget.
	I have waded through one of the more tedious Government documentstheir response to the Cabinet public engagement event in Birmingham in 2008. On that occasion, the Cabinet went to my home town and apparently met large numbers of local people, who raised with the Cabinet their concerns about various aspects of Government policy. Most of the comments in that Government document are pretty sanitised, but on skills for employment, the following crept in:
	While acknowledging the greater availability of apprenticeships, some employers were of the opinion that Government initiatives such as Train to Gain did not always meet their needs. Individuals also found it difficult to find the right apprenticeship for them, particularly in their local area.
	That is the Government saying that Train to Gain is not meeting the needs of local employers. That is what employers tell us, too, and that is why we think that the money should be focused on helping with apprenticeships.
	I have set out the problems that the nation faces when it comes to skills. We want investment in apprenticeships, and we want more opportunities for people to get practical training, including adult learning places that are not linked to paper qualifications. What we have from the Secretary of State is an endless flow of announcements, many of which, on close inspection, add up to very little. Last week in oral questions I referred to the national internship scheme, which does not appear to exist.
	Perhaps I could refer to another of the Secretary of State's announcementsone that made the front page of  The Daily Telegraph before Christmas, on Tuesday 9 December 2008. Underneath the fantastic banner headline of an article by Boris Johnson, When did Christmas Trees Get So Expensive?, there was the following headline: Jobless middle class get study cash. That article included the statement:
	John Denham, the Skills Secretary, announced in the Commons yesterday that he had spoken to university vice-chancellors to urge them to use the extra funds they will receive as a result of recent changes to VAT rates to spend on the 'hard to reach' group.
	I was in the House debating with the Secretary of State on 8 December, and I read that day's  Hansard. There was no such announcement by the Secretary of State. He did not announce any use of VAT. He had briefed  The Daily Telegraph [Interruption.] Well, the story comes from him. He had briefed  The Daily Telegraph on an announcement that he did not even make in the House of Commons. That is typical of the way in which the Government approach skillsthrough bogus announcements with no real policies behind them. That is no way to tackle the skills crisis that we face in this country.

Denis MacShane: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Willetts: I have already given way to the right hon. Gentleman. What we need is very simple: less bureaucracy, less interference in further education colleges and fewer fake announcements. We need more real apprenticeships, more adult learning, and more assistance to get young people who are not in education, employment or training into work. We need a more robust and responsive skills system. That is why we Conservative Members will vote for the motion tonight.

John Denham: I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from House to the end of the Question and add:
	commends the Government's efforts to boost the number of apprenticeships, provide more support to young people not in employment, education or training, and improve opportunities for adult learners and introduce an adult advancement and careers service; welcomes the real help provided to those affected by the downturn, including increasing the support available through the further education and skills systems; further welcomes the 240 million allocated to help those facing redundancy or newly unemployed; welcomes the additional 140 million to boost apprenticeships, the trebling of Professional and Career Development Loans, and making the Train to Gain programme more responsive, including through 350 million support for small and medium-sized enterprises; notes the Government's planned investment of 2.3 billion in renewing and modernising further education facilities over this spending review; commends its efforts to help colleges and universities become more responsive to the employer's needs, including the 50 million Higher Education Funding Council for England economic challenges fund, and to ensure the 175 billion public procurement budget maintains and strengthens investment in skills; further welcomes the simplification of existing systems; further notes that three million people access the skills system every year, with more 18 to 24 year olds working or engaged in full-time education compared to 1997; further notes the number of students in higher education in England is rising, not falling; and further notes that the Government will resist calls to cut skills budgets, as this would undermine the steps being taken to provide real help to business and individuals now.
	I shall choose my language with care. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) chided his Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), for using the words up-skill and re-skill. He may not know that I know that the hon. Member for Havant took those words from the recent Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee report on skillsthe same Select Committee that recently criticised my Department for using impenetrable jargon in our annual report. This is probably a topic where we should all tread very carefully, because it is easy to slip into the jargon of the insider and the professional.
	I very much welcome the debate. The hon. Member for Havant has saved me a little time and effort, as I had been urging the usual channels to hold a debate in Government time on the very same topic that we are discussing today. The debate is needed to remind everyone just how much the Conservatives neglected skills and further education when they were in government, and how much the legacy, such as the appalling number of adults left without basic numeracy and literacy at the end of the Conservatives' term of office, has hung over, and still hangs over, the population of this country. The debate is necessary to remind people just how much of a threat the Opposition still pose, because they get it wrong time and againas we have heard this afternoon. They misunderstand the problem and propose the wrong solutions time and againas we have heard this afternoon.

David Davies: Can the Minister explain why, after 10 or 12 years of a Labour Government, 40 per cent. of school leavers are unable to get five GCSEs, despite the fact that those have been watered down, and 60 per cent. of working class boys are leaving school with virtually nothing at allone in four people unable to read and write after 10 or 11 years of Labour government? How on earth can the right hon. Gentleman put the blame for that on the Conservative Administration?

John Denham: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman go back and look at the statistics about 10 years ago, and he will see that on every one of the measures that he quoted, there has been a dramatic improvement under this Government as a result of the investment that we have made. I, and other Labour Members, give nothing to the Opposition for the fact that we remain dissatisfied and want to continue to press forward, but we have every right to know how much we have achieved following the appalling legacy that we inherited.
	I acknowledge, by the way, that there are hon. Members on both sides of the House concerned about local further education college projects currently in the pipeline, and I will deal with that situation as fully as I can in a few moments.

Mary Creagh: Does my right hon. Friend find it interesting that the Front-Bench spokesman for the Opposition totally neglected to mention the huge amount of money that has been spent on union learning representativesthe 400 million or so that is vital to provide peer education? In Wakefield 39 per cent. of people in work have no formal qualifications whatsoever. Is it not vital that we invest in peer education and making sure that those people have qualifications? When we talk about ancient history and people in the 1980s going on youth training schemes and on the other botched training schemes that the Conservative Government ran, we should recognise that those people are now in their 30s and 40s, and will be working for the next 20 years.

John Denham: My hon. Friend is right on both points. It is indicative that the hon. Member for Havant was unable to recognise one of the biggest success stories of recent yearsthat by providing modest financial support for people at work to encourage their friends to get involved in learning, we have reached many thousands upon thousands of peopleabout 250,000 every yearwho would not otherwise have gone into learning. And they often volunteer for learning in basic numeracy and literacy, two areas where people find it most difficult to say, I've got a problem and I want some assistance. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
	I shall set out the huge gulf between the Opposition and the Government in respect of skills. We believe that in a downturn we need to invest in skills and training. The Opposition want to cut investment in skills and training. It is not acceptable for the leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), to announce that if his party was in power, from 1 April 2009 it would cut billions of pounds from public expenditure, and to name the Departments that would be protected and those, including this area of work, that would not be protected, and then for the hon. Member for Havant to say that there would be no cuts in any of these areas of spending. It is not credible or believable, and until I get a different answer, I will proceed by analysing the share of cuts that would fall to this Department and telling the House exactly what those Conservative cuts would mean for education and training.

Rob Marris: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that there are seven spending commitments in the Conservative party motion before us? They are:
	support for second-chance students...opportunities to up-skill and re-skill...boost the number of apprenticeships...more support to young people not in employment...help small and medium-sized employers access training, improve opportunities for adult learners, and introduce an all-age careers service.
	Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lack of shame is a hallmark of the bourgeoisie, and is now being exposed in Conservative Front Benchers, who put forward all those spending commitments but also wish to cut spending?

John Denham: I might choose more temperate and moderate language. However, it is reasonable to assume that many Conservative Members seeking to intervene will, like the hon. Member for Havant, want to suggest that more money should be spent. Conservative Members need to understand that they come from a party whose leader has told them that less moneythat includes less money for skills and further educationshould be spent. That means cuts.

Gordon Marsden: On the subject of Train to Gain, I should say that the Government, along with the various bodies, have announced some important flexibilities for small and medium-sized companies. That will be really important for constituencies such as mine.
	We have talked about how money has been spent in different ways. Does my right hon. Friend not find it curious that the Conservative party seems to be unclear about whether it intends to abolish Train to Gain or whetherlike the Liberal Democrats and their penny on income tax before the last electionit intends to spend the money in about five different ways?

John Denham: As the Conservative party has made clear, the whole 1 billion in the Train to Gain budget for 2010-11 would not be spent on those activities. I shall come back to that issue later. The whole package of support for small businesses, and now for larger companies, and for the 1 million people who will gain qualifications every year under the Train to Gain programme, would be removed. There is no doubt about that, and it is a great shame.

Anne Snelgrove: Further to my right hon. Friend's comments about cuts, does he share my puzzlement that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) claimed that under his plans there would be more apprenticeships for young people over 19? In fact, the cuts announced by his party leader would mean that not one young person over 19 would have an apprenticeship next year.

John Denham: I am afraid that that is true. If we move to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from a budget in just a couple of months' time, large areas of spending will not be possible. For that sort of cut, we could shut six universitiesbut of course we could not do that overnight, and huge costs would be involved. The only things that could be turned off to achieve that are those that can be turned off quickly, and that means cutting all apprenticeships for those over 19.

David Chaytor: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Denham: I shall make a little progress and then come back to my hon. Friend.
	We believe that, in addition to support for investment in skills and training, there should be an increase in support for those who lose their jobs. The Conservative party opposed the measures needed to pay for that. It would do what it did beforenothing. We should work with Britain's businesses to deliver the training that they say they want. That would give people the chance to gain the skills that they need. As we have just said, the Conservative party would take that chance away from 1 million people and thousands of firms.
	In these difficult economic times the Government have three priorities: first, delivering global action to tackle a global downturn; secondly, delivering real help now to families and businesses to help them through the challenges of the here and now; and, thirdly, delivering real hope for the future by stepping up investment in our infrastructure, industries and skills.
	Let us start with investment. When the Conservative party left officeat the time when the current, recycled, shadow shadow Chancellor was Chancellor of the Exchequerthe budget for further education colleges was zero. At the time, the National Audit Office described FE colleges as
	ageing and their quality and fitness for purpose was often unsatisfactory, affecting the reputation of the sector.
	Colleges were not fit for purpose. Since 1997 the Government have invested more than 2 billion in renewing and modernising FE facilities, and we will spend another 2.3 billion in the current spending review period. Since the programme began, nearly 700 projects in 330 colleges have been agreed.

David Burrowes: rose

John Denham: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, yes.

David Burrowes: I sense from the Secretary of State's tone that he welcomes this intervention. I hope that he will be able to give good news in advance of his visit to Southgate college, where people are hoping to improve their build dramatically but where its principal and governors, and other constituents, are concerned that although a lot of money and time has been spent on these plans, which went to the planning committee last Thursday, they have effectively been withdrawn because of the removal of capital approval. Will he now give a commitment that there will be approval for Southgate college's plans?

John Denham: As I understand it, no college plan has been presented to the LSC in the hon. Gentleman's constituency for approval, even in principle. It may well be that his local college has aspirations and hopes to move forward, as many others do and rightly should, but it does not do this debate much good to claim that colleges were on the verge of final approval when they are clearly some way further down the line in terms of planning procedures. I will be happy to discuss the situation at the college when I visit it in a few days or a few weeks'.
	As I was saying, since the programme began nearly 700 projects in 330 colleges have been agreed. At present, 253 schemes are under way or are fully approved. Only 42 colleges in the whole of England have yet to receive any investment. Last summer, the National Audit Office reported the programme as making good progress with the renewal and modernisation of the FE estate. It found that the great majority of projects had come in on budget and delivered great improvements for learners, and said:
	The capital programme for further education is enabling colleges and the Learning and Skills Council to achieve together what neither could have achieved on their own, and is delivering high quality buildings.

Ann Coffey: rose

Denis MacShane: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Denham: Let me get a little further, if I may, in setting out the position.
	As part of the boost to the economy, which the Conservative party has opposed, we have brought forward 220 million over the spending review period to this year and the next. Let us be clear: it is my intention to ensure that every pound that we have promised to spend will be spent. The capital programme has not been suspended.

Ann Coffey: Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem has been that the Learning and Skills Council announced the deferral of a small number of projects for three months, alarming every college principal with a capital project? Aquinas and Stockport colleges in my constituency have capital projects worth over 60 million, which is a big investment in Stockport and in further education. Those two colleges have planning permission. Can he assure me that their plans will go ahead?

John Denham: As I understand it, the two projects to which my hon. Friend refers have received full approval in detail. None of the colleges that have received such approval is affected by the current delay in LSC consideration.

Denis MacShane: My constituency, Rotherham, has been hard hit, with job cuts at Corus and with Burberry shutting down. Three weeks ago, the  Rotherham Advertiser filled two pages with the new plans for the new development at Rotherham college of arts and technology, which had been signed off. I was concerned about that being displayed, given the misleading guidance to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) has just referred. I am meeting George Trow, the college principal, on Friday. Could the Secretary of State's private office write to me before then with the assurance that he has now given at the Dispatch Box, with reference to Rotherham college of arts and technology? I would be most grateful.

John Denham: The remarks that I made apply to colleges that have received full approval in detail to proceed. I am happy to write to my right hon. Friend ahead of his meeting.
	Having set out the success of the programme and made it clear that it is my intention to ensure that every pound that we have promised to spend will be spent and that the capital programme has not been suspended, let me turn to an issue that is of genuine concern to Members on both sides of the House. There are schemes in the pipeline that have not yet been fully approved, and the LSC has put further approvals on hold until it has assessed the whole programme. The LSC has not yet provided a full analysis of all those schemes, but I need to be frank: many more schemes are currently in preparation than can be funded in this spending round. Some colleges that have anticipated early approval will be disappointed. Priorities will have to be set and hard decisions will have to be taken.
	It is clear that in some cases, unrealistic expectations have been allowed to develop or have been encouraged, which is unacceptable. The LSC is, by statute, responsible for the management of the capital programme, but as Secretary of State, I will apologise to any colleges that find themselves in the position we have discussed, and as Secretary of State I need to find out how that situation arose and what lessons must be learned for the future. That is why I have agreed with the Learning and Skills Council that Sir Andrew Foster should carry out an independent review of the LSC's handling of the programme. I hope that I have outlined the current position to the House as much as I can, and I undertake to bring forward more detailed information when it becomes available and when I am able to do so.

David Willetts: I appreciate that the Secretary of State has recognised the problem faced by FE colleges. Could he add a bit more information about the number of colleges whose plans are in the pipeline, and on the value of those projects, so that we can have a rough idea of the scale of the disappointment that he is talking about?

John Denham: I am not able to do that reliably. The problem is that if I were to give the number of schemes that have formally been through every process and which are, as it were, sitting in the LSC's in-tray for approval either in detail or in principle, I would be understating the problemand I do not want to do that. We have just discussed a college in north London that would not fit into that category, but where I accept that some work has been done in drawing up plans for the future. The procedure has a regional and a national element, and I would prefer to make information available to the House when I have a full picture of the number of projects in the pipeline, and the stage that they are at. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that as an honest answer. It would not help for me to present what might be seen as a narrow definition of the colleges that have expectations of approval in the next year.

David Willetts: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way a second time. I understand what he is saying, and I appreciate the suggestion that he will make information available, but will he undertake to come to the House with such a statement? Can he tell the House when he might be able to give us the information? The uncertainty is itself part of the problem for the FE sector.

John Denham: The LSC told me that it is working towards being able to take the complete picture, with some clarification on the decisions it can take, to its council meeting, which is due to take place on 2 March. I hope that in the days or weeks before 2 March it will be possible, by written statement or in whichever way is appropriate, to make information available. I make that undertaking to the House because we are very proud of the programme. It was praised by the NAO and it has achieved a great deal of good. Colleges are being built, the programme will be delivered over the next two years, and it is unacceptable that some colleges that hope to be part of that process in the near future may face disappointment. We will make available any information that we can as it becomes available.

Alistair Burt: Before the Secretary of State leaves that point, he will note that the management and administration of the LSC has been one of the most messed-about aspects of education in recent years. Will the inquiry have a look at whether the continual chopping and changing in the way in which the LSC did its job contributed in any way to the freeze that he is dealing with at the moment?

John Denham: I have asked Sir Andrew Foster to look specifically at the handling of the capital programme. Moreover, we are going to establish an agency focused on young people and on skills, which the House will be debating in a few days' time, to advise us and the LSC on what lessons should be drawn from what has happened in the past few months for the future handling of the programme by those two agencies. I hope that that addresses the hon. Gentleman's point, at least in part.

David Chaytor: I look forward to the Secretary of State's visit to my constituency in a few weeks' time, where he will be able to see for himself the remarkable rebuild of the two outstanding colleges in my constituency. But, as far as future capital spend is concerned, would he remind us about what the Opposition have said about the extent to which they are prepared to match the Government's spending programme?

John Denham: It would have been seriously remiss of me to forget to draw attention to that point, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Opposition spokesman told the Association of Colleges that he could not even guarantee to deliver the capital spend promised by this Government in 2010. I hope that any Opposition Members who are rushing to put out press releases saying how terrible the whole thing is will say that their own party wishes to cut spending in 2010.
	A global economic slowdown is the time to increase, not to reduce, investment in skills and training. Companies that invest in training are two and a half times more likely to come through the downturn successfully than those that do not. Today it is even more important that business knows that it can get real help from the Government. Those who lose their jobs need support, including help with skills to get back into work, and young people need more opportunities to learn and train for the jobs of the future. That is what we are providing, and what the Opposition oppose. They say that my Department should cut 610 million a year, starting from 1 April. They oppose the Government's fiscal stimulus and the borrowing needed in a downturn, so they could not match the new investment that we are making or the new support provided by Jobcentre Plus. Now is the very worst time to make cuts, just when people need training to help them keep their jobs, when businesses need to train their staff to boost productivity, and when people need extra support to help them train or retrain to get a job.
	The hon. Member for Havant talks of young people without work, education or training. He knows that the figures that he throws about represent a smaller proportion of a much larger generation of young people. Not content with ignoring the extra 1 million young people in work or education since 1997, he throws into the figure young people who are at home bringing up childrenthe Tories used to be in favour of that. He throws in part-time studentsthey used to be in favour of them, tooand students on gap years, just to pad out his press release.
	Of course there is a real, if much smaller, problem of young people apart from the system. But what does the hon. Gentleman do? He opposes the very things that would help, such as raising the participation age so that more young people get work with training, and the new deal, which is giving young people extra support. His concern turns out to be empty rhetoric.

Mark Lancaster: I hope that the Secretary of State will treat this as a genuine request for information. Given his commitment to getting people back to work, what assessment has he made of the potential cost of adding students currently on benefit to those who are exempt from his reversal of funding for equivalent or lower qualifications?

John Denham: That is a slightly complicated question, which I may need to reflect on when I have a look at  Hansard. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the change that we have made to ELQ funding, to create new opportunities for those who have never been able to go to university, was the right decision. Further measures have been taken to ensure that there are higher education courses to enable people with higher-level skills to reskillI can say that word, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire is no longer in his placeand gain new skills. That is the right approach to meeting the labour market's need for people to retrain for a new career or a new direction.
	The hon. Member for Havant mentioned apprenticeships. This Government have rescued apprenticeships from their collapse under the Conservatives and built them up so that they are well on their way to taking their rightful place as a mainstream option for young people. He could not match the extra 140 million that we are investing to provide 35,000 extra places this year. We want more than 250,000 apprenticeships next year, just when young people, and business, need that boost. The new national apprenticeship service will enable us to meet our ambition that one in five young people will take up an apprenticeship in the next decade, and to extend group training associations and support the extension of existing schemes. We expect the public sector to shoulder its share of responsibility.

Paul Truswell: Labour Members all know that when the Opposition were in power, apprenticeships were going the way of the dodo. None the less, does my right hon. Friend accept the concern about the position of some apprentices, given the difficult economic circumstances in which their employers find themselves? What action might be taken to ensure that the investment in current apprenticeships is not lost?

John Denham: We have established a clearing house in the construction sector to try to match apprentices who may lose their jobs with other placements. We have also changed some of the rules in the system to make it easier for apprentices to continue their college-based training to get the necessary technical qualifications. We acknowledge the problem that my hon. Friend mentions and we are tackling it.

Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Denham: I have taken many interventions and I need to make some progress. I shall take more interventions if I can.
	Even if the Conservative party stopped all apprenticeships for those over 19 next year, they would have to make further cuts of 400 million in education and training. We continue to expand higher education; Conservative Members could not.
	More than 330,000 people learned new skills through Train to Gain last year, and more than 100,000 employers have engaged with the programme. By 2010-11, the programme will train 1 million a year. Train to Gain means training when and where employers want it, and it works for businesses and individuals. Forty-three per cent. of Train to Gain learners reported that they earned better pay, and 30 per cent. gained a promotion as a result of their training. Fifty-one per cent. of businesses reported an increase in staff productivity and 64 per cent. said that it improved their long-term competitiveness. The deputy director of the CBI recently said that Train to Gain is exactly the product we need at this time.
	Yet the hon. Member for Havant and the Conservative party have repeatedly called for the abolition of Train to Gain. That means denying 1 million people and thousands of firms the chance to get on or use training to come through difficult times. Train to Gain lets us offer small businesses flexible trainingshort courses, which have an immediate impact on productivity. It has enabled us to work with companies such as Nissan, JCB and others to train workers who face short-time working. The Conservatives would stop that.
	In the past two years, more than 1 million adults have gained their first literacy or numeracy qualification. Last year, almost 300,000 people got a level 2 qualification and 130,000 got a level 3 qualificationhuge increases compared with five years ago. Those record improvements transform people's lives and make a genuine difference. What would the hon. Member for Havant do? He believes that we should turn back the clock, end the courses and revert to subsidising Spanish courses for holidays.
	Training will help companies through the downturn, but it cannot prevent every job loss. In the last recession, people who lost their jobs were abandoned without help or hope. Many drifted or were dumped on to incapacity benefit. Some never worked again. We will not turn our backs on those who lose their jobs. We have provided 158 million in new support to colleges, third sector organisations and Jobcentre Plus to help people get the skills they need to keep their job or find a new one quickly. We are challenging the whole education and training system to change the way in which it works, and to respond better to individuals and businesses. An extra 75,000 college places will be there for those who are out of work for more than six months. People will not have to choose between learning and earning; as they get into work, their training will continue.
	At every level of education and training, people may want to reskill or retrain. We have supported and encouraged the Higher Education Funding Council, with 50 million match funding to help universities and support individuals and businesses now. A few moments ago, the hon. Member for Havant complained that he had read about that in  The Daily Telegraph . Now the scheme is a reality, but he has not even congratulated us on it. That funding is possible because of the VAT cut, which the Conservative party also opposes.
	We are trebling professional and career development loans, allowing for 45,000 new chances to gain skills and qualifications. We are planning for the future. We are establishing the skills funding agency to ensure that we can develop the skills that we need in the strategic parts of the economy, which will enable us to prosper when the upturn comes.
	I welcome the fact that we are having this debatea debate that the Government themselves intended to hold. I hope that I have explained why we wanted it. The Conservative party has a bad history, a wrong analysis of the problems, the wrong policiesand does not even have the courage to come to the House and explain how the cuts that its party leader has promised would affect this area of activity. Everybody will learn lessons from that.

Stephen Williams: The Secretary of State mentioned previous recessions. I have bitter memories of two recessionsone when I was in school and the other when I had just started work.
	In the early 1980s, when I was in secondary school, my community in south Wales was devastated. Hundreds of people in one village could be thrown out of work in one day, sometimes as a result of the deliberate policy of the Government of that time. Shops were boarded up and people were in despair. Indeed, some people of my father's era faced unemployment and insecurity for an entire generation.
	I also remember being a young graduate trainee in 1990 in what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers, when the three people who sat near memy manager and two supervisorsgot a telephone call, reported to the fourth floor and were made redundant. They were then marched on to the pavement and I was told to clear their desks.
	I have bitter memories of previous recessions, but many young people today simply have no idea what a recession is, because for the past 15 or 20 years they have grown up in an environment of increasing prosperity, rising house prices and a credit bubblethat is, in an age of consumerism. Now they suddenly find that that certaintyindeed, that bubblehas been pricked.
	In a few months' time, one third of a million undergraduates will be leaving university and, for perhaps the first time in a generation, they will not really know what the future holds for them. When I graduated 20 years ago, the pattern was the same as it is at present. Traditionally, the largest employers of graduates were in financial services, banking, the City and the professional services that support those occupations. However, the sector is facing its worst recession in a generation, so young people leaving university will be uncertain and worried about their future.
	Those who are yet to decide what to do beyond schoolto go into further or higher educationmust be wondering whether it is worth making that investment, which now comes with increased personal debt, or whether they would be better off taking their chances in the workplace. Those already in the workplace knew that the dynamic 21st-century economy meant that they would probably have to train and retrain throughout their working lives. However, in a downturn or recession, they will have to rethink and to retrain all over again.
	It must be something of a record in a debate on skillsI have had to do several in the three and a half years that I have been a Member of Parliamentthat neither the Conservative spokesman nor the Secretary of State mentioned the Leitch report, which was meant to be the foundation of the Government's skills strategy, taking us up to the 2020 economy. Perhaps that is because, two years on from Leitch, the Secretary of State and the Government realise that many of the recommendations and conclusions of that report are already effectively redundant, because the economy has changed. Many of the criticisms made of the report from the Liberal Democrat Benches in 2006 and 2007 are perhaps more apt now. In particular, employer-led demand does not seem so relevant when many people no longer have an employer.
	Those who are unemployed or who fear unemployment will not be interested in arbitrary targets for qualifications. They need practical help now. We need a skills strategy, not a target for qualifications. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) may no longer be in his place, but I am afraid that we do need reskilling, which is ever more relevant, and not just the upskilling that seemed to be the foundation of the Government's strategy just two years ago.
	Some of the targets in the Leitch report, which are still embedded in Government policy, such as the attainment of a full level 2 qualification, as well as the funding linked to those targets, are perhaps not relevant to the many people who are having to refocus their lives and their priorities. For older workers in particular who may need to retrain to get a specific new skill, attaining a broad level 2 qualification, which is the Government's main target, is not necessarily appropriate.

Anne Snelgrove: If we take reskilling to mean learning new skills in order to move into a different area of employment, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that such work is certainly happening in my constituency, particularly with the Honda workers. The Government are not ignoring such work; in fact, it is happening apace in my constituency.

Stephen Williams: I am not saying that no reskilling is taking place at allobviously that would be absurdbut all the Government's targets in the strategy that was commissioned by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor back in 2006 are linked to upskilling the work force. Those targets were not so focused on whether people needed to reskill throughout their working lives. That is the point that I was making.
	That point is backed up by research that some of us will probably have received in advance of today's debate from, among many other organisations, Age Concern. A study by Age Concern has shown that an unemployed man over the age of 50 probably has only a one in five chance of returning to employment within two years. That is worse than the survival rate for many critical illnesses. Those people need a quick, personalised intervention.
	We need a whole new approach to adult learning that involves retraining the older workers in an ageing work force as well as preparing the young for the fast-changing world of work. Adult learningformal and informalis especially good for women, as was illustrated by the conclusions of the skills study that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) has been chairing. Perhaps he will speak about it shortly. The study shows that women in particular benefit from adult education, because many of the women who are now in the work force did not attain particularly good results when they were at school. The attainment levels of girls in the 1970s and 1980s were behind those of boysa complete reversal of where we are today.

Gordon Marsden: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for publicising the Women and Work report that was published today. Does he agree that, when we are looking at reskilling in the downturn, we need to look carefully at giving proper value to what some people might call soft skillsthe hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) is not here, so I can say thatalthough I prefer to call them enabling skills? They are precisely the kind of development and personal skills that will assist older workers, and women in particular, to get back into work or to improve their work skills base.

Stephen Williams: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was pleased to be able to play my part in giving evidence and taking part in the seminar that assessed the evidence that has led to today's report. Soft skills are relevant to women in the work force, and to young people entering the work force. One of the most common things that I hear from employers, and the organisations that represent them, is that they want people entering the work force to have not only literacy and numeracy skills but cross-cutting skills that will enable them to sell, persuade, articulate and engage in teamwork.

Simon Hughes: Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to get across the message that we are absolutely determined that people who are just over 50 should have the same opportunities as anyone else? I had two such people in my surgery last week, one woman and one man. Such people might have 10, 15 or 20 years' work left in them, and they have the capacity and the will to do it. They must not be made to feel that they are second class when looking for new skills, new opportunities and new work.

Stephen Williams: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the demographic change that is to take place over the next decade or so, our national prosperity will become increasingly reliant on the people who currently make up that part of the work force. As a result of the economic downturn, their pensions and economic stability are now more uncertain, and many of them have realised that they are going to have to stay in the workplace for a lot longer than they envisaged 20 or 25 years ago.
	One qualification that definitely needs greater support is the recognised brand of apprenticeships. A forthcoming Bill will include the Government's provisions for dealing with apprenticeships, and I am sure that we will spend more time discussing them during its passage. In the present economic downturn, however, it is vital to support employers and help them to meet the training costs of those whom they take on as apprentices. That would be a better use of the growth in the Train to Gain budget over the next couple of years, which would release 500 million into meeting the training costs of new apprenticeships. That would not involve a cut; it would simply be a refocusing of the growth in the budget that will take place in any event.
	There also needs to be greater certainty for young peopleor, indeed, older peoplewho are thinking of entering an apprenticeship. It is not easy to find out who is offering apprenticeships, whether in someone's own locality or further afield. We need an apprenticeship service that would, in some ways, replicate that available for those wishing to enter higher educationa UCAS-type systemso that people could find out what places and remuneration were available, and what opportunities were open to them.
	The public sector should also set an example, certainly for Government construction contracts but in other Government services and procurement projects too. The Government could make a tangible difference in this area, in contrast to the rather meaningless announcements that they have made so far about interns.
	The issue of capital expenditure in further education colleges was the subject of an earlier exchange. The information that I have is that more than 20 schemes were delayed for three months by the national Learning and Skills Council in December. That means a real cost to those colleges; it is not just a matter of uncertainty about whether they can proceed with their plans. Many colleges have already engaged architects, for example. In my constituency, a leading firm of architects has laid off a third of its work force; other architects have approached me and said that they were expecting to have the go-ahead to work on these projects, but because of the downturn across the entire construction area, many of those professional people are now fearful for their jobs. Of course, some FE colleges have sunk professional fees into working up proposals, so the delay, albeit of only three months, should not be so easily dismissed.

John Hayes: Have some of the colleges not also raised money? They have gained money from other sources, perhaps from private sources, so in those financial circumstances pulling the plug has very serious consequences.

Stephen Williams: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The costs of the projects are often more than simply a central Government grant, vital though that is, as grants are often matched by sales of land, for instance, by the colleges. City of Bristol college, for example, has had a huge amount spent on it, including from Government resources, but its capital programme was made possible only because of a sale of part of the site for housing. Ironically, those houses are in the process of construction as well, so the college has got its money and had its improvements, but any college anticipating using a land sale as part of a capital project must now realise that land sales are plummeting and that their entire project might be in jeopardy on account of the delay.
	I found it rather curious that the Secretary of State had to announce in Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills questions last week that he was inviting Sir Andrew Fosterwhom I recall in 2006 calling further education the unloved middle child of the British education systemto review something that should be directly under the control of the right hon. Gentleman's own Department.

Kelvin Hopkins: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is regrettable that colleges have to indulge in land deals to fund rebuilding? Should it not be more like the position with schools, where rebuilding is wholly funded by the public sector or the state? Does he agree that that is particularly important for sixth-form colleges, which in many ways are more comparable to schools than colleges?

Stephen Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am not sure that I agree with him. Surely value for money for the taxpayer should be a consideration in any council programme. If any part of the public sector, whether it be a college or not, has surplus land that can be used and sold on the market in order to release its value to the public sector, it is surely right to embrace that rather than dismiss it. I am not an advocate of the state being solely responsible for funding everything.
	As I was saying, it is rather curious that the Government felt the need to announce the Foster review of decisions that should have been under their control. At the very least, the Secretary of State should have been keeping an eye on what the Learning and Skills Council was doing, because in November the Chancellor pledged in his pre-Budget report that 400 million of capital expenditure in higher and further education was to be accelerated in this comprehensive spending review period rather than held over to a future budgetary period. Why did the Government not therefore keep an eye on things and ensure that that 400 million was released rather than delayed?

John Denham: The hon. Gentleman may have missed the thrust of what I said earlier, which is that that money is being spent. That is not the problem. The problem relates to schemes outside the budget to which we have committed and are seeking approval. We are going to meet what was set out in the pre-Budget report. I will not repeat myself. I acknowledge the issue that is being raised, but the problem is not that we will not spend the money that we were given in the spending review period.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman was not listening.

Stephen Williams: I was listening. I listened carefully to the pre-Budget report statement, to what the Secretary of State said during DIUS questions last week, and to what he said today. The fact remains that the review of capital expenditure should have been under the Government's control, especially given that they made good-news announcements and attempted to secure publicity for them just a few months ago.

Rob Marris: Three months ago.

Stephen Williams: As I said earlier, three months make a difference.
	The motion also covers higher education. As I observed at the outset, undergraduates who will leave university in June and July this year will face an uncertain period. It is important to remember that they will be the first university graduates to exit from the brave new world of top-up fees and 3,000-a-year tuition fees. They will be the most heavily debt-burdened generation of graduates that the country has ever produced.  [Interruption.] I thought that I heard the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) say Nonsense, but surely he cannot have said that.

Tom Levitt: I did.

Stephen Williams: It is an empirical fact that graduates who have accumulated probably 10,000 of tuition fee debt and 4,500 of maintenance debt, as well as credit card bills and overdrafts, are likely to constitute the generation of young people with the highest level of debts as they leave our higher education system and enter a market in which they cannot be certain of securing jobs. I do not believe that they would think that that was nonsense.

David Davies: The hon. Gentleman is certainly right in one respectit is an empirical factbut we may differ on another point. The real tragedy is that many of those graduates have been given degrees in subjects that will not lead to any sort of job, because there are no jobs available for people with degrees in film studies and the like.

Stephen Williams: The hon. Gentleman began by making a serious point about graduate unemployment. Certainly many people with degreesincluding those who may expected to enter highly paid jobs in financial serviceswill face an uncertain future. However, I do not share his dismissive,  Daily Mail-like attitude to certain degree programmes. The employment outcomes of many people who undertake new media coursesor study golf course management, or whatever other subject the hon. Gentleman may have wished to citeshow that such courses often result in high employment and good wages.

David Chaytor: The hon. Gentleman has made a strong case for more investment in capital, reskilling and upskilling, and more investment for the over-50s, but how does he square all that demand for more investment with his party's policy, which is to continue to subsidise free tuition for full-time undergraduates who come from the most privileged families and who are at the most prestigious universities?

Stephen Williams: I was expecting such an intervention from the Labour Benches, and I am surprised that it has taken so long.
	All the expenditure commitments that I have made so far today have consisted of commentary on existing Government pledges. That, surely, is the point about the further education capital programme. As for funding our spending pledges at the next general election, this Opposition partyperhaps unlike the other Opposition partyalways goes into a general election with a fully costed programme. The fine detail is combed over independently, usually by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
	The leader of my party is absolutely clear about the fact that our spending pledges on family care, schools and higher education, all of which will be debated at our spring conference in Harrogate, will have to be metparticularly in these difficult economic timesthrough a refocusing of other Government programmes to which we do not give priority. Obviously we shall announce what they are at the time of the next general election.

David Chaytor: For the purpose of further clarification, will the hon. Gentleman give us a progress report on the specific issue of the review of the policy on university tuition fees?

Stephen Williams: I invite my friend the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) to be patient and wait until a week or two from now, when those conclusions will be published in advance of our conference.

Tom Levitt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Williams: I think that I have given way enough. I need to make some progress now.

Tom Levitt: It relates to my earlier intervention.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he must not barrack from a sedentary position. However, it appears that on this occasion his barracking has succeeded.

Tom Levitt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for both giving way and observing the custom of the House that when a Member making a speech refers to an intervention, they then give way to the Member who made the intervention. I said Nonsense when the hon. Gentleman was repeating the claims about student debt that got him elected in a constituency with a high student population, because his argument falls apart when we accept that the most debt-challenged student is not as debt-challenged as the graduate who takes on a mortgage. We do not see that debt in the same way. It is not a debt that has to be repaid immediately, or a debt on which high interest rates are charged. It is a debt that will be repaid over 25 years and anything not paid will then be ignored. It is a good situation for someone

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is a very long intervention in what is a time-limited debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) will also, in his generosity, recall that many Members wish to speak.

Stephen Williams: I think I have been generous in allowing interventions. I say to the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) that if he represented a university city and tried that argument with tens of thousands of students, he would not get a very good reception.
	If higher education is to expand in the future, it will need to be more flexible, particularly as we have a fast-changing economy. We need to have more people learning part-time, building up their degrees on a credit or modular basis. Therefore, we need to treat those who choose to study on a part-time basis more equitably than at present.
	As the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) also said of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats take the position that the 100 million reallocationor cutfrom the equivalent or lower qualifications budget that was directed by the Secretary of State to the Higher Education Funding Council was a mistake. We said that at the time, and it is even more of a mistake now, when people would benefit from taking on new qualifications. It would be interesting to hear in the ministerial summing up what has actually happened to that 100 million that was supposedly refocused. The justification given for that cut in ELQs was that the 100 million was to be refocused on setting up new places in higher education, but all we have heard recently is either that applications have stalled or that the Government are warning the sector not to expect any growth in funded places in future.
	The hon. Member for Havant referred to NEETsthose not in any formal mode of education, whether FE, higher education or apprenticeships. The Government's big idea for dealing with them in the Education and Skills Bill of last year was to raise the education and training age to 18. My party resisted that position at the time. The Secretary of State has been rather cagey in some of his statements to the press about this, but I hope the Government will not be tempted to bring forward the raising of the leaving age in order to mask worsening youth unemployment.
	My final substantial point is on the need for independent advice and guidance, not only for those not in education or training, but for 13 and 14-year-olds, who are entering a completely different landscape of educational provision, whether they go down the traditional academic path of GCSEs and what comes after that, or take up the new diplomas or young people's apprenticeships. It is vital that that advice is independent of the educational setting in which they find themselves at 13 or 14. It should also be aspirational, particularly for children educated in poorer backgrounds, or those educated in more affluent backgrounds who come from a poorer family. They should challenge the stereotypes, whether based on gender or other grounds, that they might otherwise face, in order for them to be prepared for an increasingly uncertain future.
	Such new skills and training should prepare young people for the emergent economy as well as for the current economic emergency. Whether the UK's future lies in life sciences, digital media or, to use the jargon term, green-collar jobs, it is important that people are prepared for them, and have appropriate advice on the pathways open to them.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Williams: No, as I am reaching my conclusion, and I have been generous in allowing interventions.
	It is to be hoped that we are facing a relatively short-term economic emergency, but it is creating uncertainty for young people and anxiety for those who have been in the workplace for rather longer. We need appropriately focused short-term interventions for them, but in the long term we need a cultural shift by both employers and the state, to make sure that all modes of study and training are valued equally, so that we can deliver lasting prosperity and real social mobility.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that the 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches begins now. I call Mr. Eric Illsley.

Eric Illsley: First, may I make a complaint that I have made many times in this House? In a three hour and twenty-minute debate in which Mr. Speaker has imposed a 10-minute limit, it seems remiss that the three Front-Bench speakers have, between them, taken an hour and a half. I suggest that it would be incumbent on them to take a little less time in future, especially when the time available to Back Benchers is so limited.
	We are debating further education, so I make no apologies for the fact that I wish to speak about Barnsley college, although I do apologise to hon. Members for the condition of my voice. I want to discuss the college, first, because it has been a success story over the past few years and, secondly, because it is caught up in the capital funding programme. The rebuilding colleges scheme is excellent, and I am delighted that my local college has been able to benefit from it thus far, although I shall discuss my concerns about its continuation.
	Barnsley college has done very well over the past few years and, together with other institutions in Barnsley, it has, for example, managed to reduce the number of our NEETsan awful acronym that means those not in education, employment or trainingto 8 per cent. through a lot of hard work and effort. Barnsley college is also responsible for, among other things, the Arctic Monkeys, whoever they areI am told they are pretty good. I am happy with the way the college has performed and with the funding up to this point.
	The college has benefited from the capital programme thus far, and we are halfway through a capital refurbishment programmewe are halfway through phase 3 of itwhich involves a large building in the middle of the town centre. Work has started on the demolition of that building, including the removal of asbestos and so on, but that work has basically been frozen. If the programme is suspended, we will not be able to re-use the building, and if we do not get the money, the programme cannot go aheadthat is a matter of concern.
	I have listened to hon. Members talking about the situation of colleges prior to Labour's coming into office. When the Secretary of State said that the budget for further education colleges in 1997 was about zero, it reminded me of the problems faced in the FE sector from 1993 and the incorporation of collegesthat was when they were freed from local authority control. I remember vividly the corruption and the problems in that sector, including at my collegeit lost some 6 million at that time through criminal activity. At that time, the reputation of colleges was not very good and they were not well regarded. We have come a long way from that particular point.
	To reassess capital spending in the face of an economic downturn such as this one seems an entirely reasonable thing to doI could not argue against it. If a capital programme has not been approved in detail and if one faces an economic downturn such as we have and probably a shortfall in the amount of funding available, it is entirely sensible to reassess exactly what spending will go ahead. But, as I have said, Barnsley college is committed to a number of phases under its capital programme, two of which have already been completed. The third phase is under way and the fourth is yet to go ahead, but all four are linked. The problem is that we have completed two, the third is midway through and the fourth is yet to have plans submitted for it, yet they are all linked. As I have mentioned, building on phase 3 has been suspended pending what we assumed would be a decision later in March on whether the funding would go ahead. But there now appears to be some confusion over what the LSC is saying and what the Government are saying. The principal of the college has said that the LSC expected the college to demolish the buildings because it was necessary to carry out enabling works before the approval of the main build projects. The LSC national and regional offices agreed on 9 January that the college had acted within its powers. So the college had the approval of the LSC to go ahead with the preparatory works and the demolition within phase 3, but a moratorium now appears to have been placed on that phase.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said last Thursday that no college that had received final approval would lose out, but the college principal wrote to me and said that he had attended a meeting in Bradford on 9 January, called by Mr. Phil Head, the head of infrastructure and property strategy at the LSC national office. It was attended by national and regional officers. The principal wrote:
	At the meeting I was informed that the LSC was reviewing its priorities for all capital programmes and no assurance could be given that any individual project would be funded or, if funding is agreed, when it may be released.
	With the best will in the world, that tends to suggest that some programmes have been suspended indefinitely.
	I welcome what the Secretary of State has said today, but I hope that we can look again at the situation of Barnsley college. The project has been approved at every stage as it has progressed through the system. The funding has been put in place by the college and there is no question of it not being able to raise its share of the money. The scheme does not rely on the sale of land or the use of other assets. The funding is in place, except for that coming from the grant. However, there is now confusion about whether phase 3 will continue, despite the fact that work has already started. The fourth and final phase, for which plans must be submitted in spring 2009, is also in doubt. I ask my right hon. Friend to look again at Barnsley college's position and give me some reassurance that the last two phasesof a four-phase programme costing 55 millionare safe. With two phases completed, one half-way and another one remaining to be approved, it would be ridiculous to allow the scheme to falter at this stage.

Tony Baldry: I hope that the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) will forgive me if I do not follow his specific comments, but the whole House will understand his concerns.
	Last Friday we saw in Banbury the launch of a job club, which involved pretty much every organisation locallyJobcentre Plus, the LSC, Business Link, Oxfordshire county council, Oxfordshire Economic Partnership, Cherwell district council, the Shaw Trust, RESTORE and others. On the official statistics, the Banbury travel-to-work area has an unemployment rate of about 1 per cent., but nearly 300 jobseekers turned up on Friday to take part and get involved in that job club. That indicates the scale and the depth of the present recession. What is happening in the labour market is very serious indeed.
	The people there had different needs. Some needed to maintain their skills, but one thing that struck me was that quite a lot of those people were the hidden unemployed. They are technically self-employed subcontractors, but they have been working for one or two contractors or companies. They have effectively lost their work but they do not get income-related jobseeker's allowance and so maintaining their skills and qualifications is quite difficult. For example, HGV drivers need to do more than just maintain their HGV licence. How are they going to do that?
	People need to adapt their skills, too. For example, Prodrive in Banbury will make just short of 200 people redundant this year, simply because Subaru has pulled out of world rallying. Prodrive is probably an excellent employer and those who it is reluctantly having to make redundant are highly skilled automotive engineers. How do they adapt their skills in a marketplace where other automotive engineering jobs are going, such as those at Aston Martin and along the whole corridor from Cowley to Longbridge? They need to be able to adapt those skills.
	Lastly, there are people who need to acquire completely new skills. In an area such as mine, where do they go to do that? The answer is, surely, the local FE college. I am trying to understand how my constituents who turned up last week to the Banbury job club, which will run every Fridayin my patch, we are going to ensure that so far as is possible nobody gets left behind in this recessioncan acquire those skills.
	One difficulty at the local college, as I understand it, is that unless an adult signs up to a whole NVQ they cannot get funding. Many people do not necessarily need to sign up for a whole NVQ or cannot do a whole NVQ in one go. They just want to take a unit of the qualification. I do not see why the Learning and Skills Council funds adults only if they are going to do an NVQ level 2 or 3, because many of my constituents want to adapt and acquire skills on a piece by piece basis.
	In a written answer last week, the Under-Secretary of State very kindly answered a question that I tabled, which asked
	what work his Department is undertaking with the further education sector to provide training or retraining for those who become unemployed.
	He said that the Department was providing
	158 million to support those looking for work.
	Perhaps we could have a breakdown of how that 158 million will be used. To what extent will my constituents who have become unemployed be able to access it to acquire further skills at the local FE college? The Minister also said that there would be
	350 million improved flexibilities in Train to Gain for bite-sized courses for SMEs:[ Official Report, 29 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 788W.]
	That is absolutely fine, except for the fact that if small and medium-sized enterprises are laying people off, it does not necessarily help those who become unemployed to acquire new skills.
	In my patch, and I am sure in other hon. Members' constituencies, we experience a dysfunction in that quite a number of people are being made redundant in retail, yet in every single nursing home I am told that it is very difficult to recruit nursing staff. The homes have been relying for a very long time on nursing staff from countries outside the European Union area, such as the Philippines. How will we ensure that we can train people to work in those areas of the economy where there are vacancies as speedily as possible? How do we share information about skills needs? I am told that my local regional development agency, the South East England Development AgencySEEDAis doing research on skills needs in the area. However, it seems to be very patchy and to be quite slow in coming through.
	We need a speedier analysis of where the skilled vacancies are arising in the local economy and of how we match job vacancies much more quickly to those who become unemployed. For a long time, JobCentre Plus has been concerned primarily with getting people on to jobseeker's allowance. It has rather relied on local recruitment agencies to get people into work, but they tend to know only about jobs that are immediately available in the local labour market. However, if 200 automotive engineers are made redundant in an area where lots of other automotive engineers are also being made redundant, the local recruitment agencies will not know about other vacancies in engineering elsewhere in the country. We are going to have to get a lot smarter about how we ensure that the vacancies that exist in the economy get promoted, promulgated and filled much more quickly.
	I have been in this House for 26 years and I still think that I am pretty much of a novice in these matters. I find it pretty difficult to get to grips with the Learning and Skills Council. I think that I have a pretty good grip of my constituency, but tracking down who is running the local LSC is pretty tough. Moreover, as soon as I get to understand a bodythe Manpower Services Commission, then the area manpower boards, then the training and enterprise councils and now the LSCsit goes. I am at a complete loss to understand why that happens.
	Moreover, I believe that the present arrangements will end in 2010 and that we will then have to get to grips with three new bodies. One, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, will be for young people; another, funded by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, will be for adults; and the third will be a national apprenticeship body funded by a different group. How on earth are college and FE principals meant to get to grips with those three organisations? We are in an economic crisis and loads of people right across the piece are losing their jobs and needing help, so why on earth are the LSCs being scrapped now? Let us at least have a degree of stability.

Anne Main: My hon. Friend has described the rigmarole that causes confusion for everyone, but does he agree that another factor is the sheer cost involved? The Government do not seem to be encouraging economy. I find it amazing that they should be relaunching their Life is a Great Thing initiative to expand access to university. It is yet another promotional and rebranding exercise that will incur lots of extra expense.

Tony Baldry: I entirely agree. I cannot see the rationale behind the Government's approach. People are in desperate need of some understanding of how to get help, and rebranding the LSC will not help themand particularly not adults who need to acquire new skillsin that regard.
	I hope that I do not sound rather portentous, but I thought some of the Punch and Judy stuff earlier this afternoon about who would make the greatest cuts was pretty pathetic, given that most of us taking part in the debate are truly concerned about what is happening in our constituencies. All of us in this House are grown up enough to know that the general black hole in the public finances means that whoever forms the Government after the next general election will have to make some difficult decisions about public spending. Those of us who have been around for a while realise how difficult they will be.
	In relation to FE colleges, we are asking only for some degree of certainty. We all recognise that it may not be possible to do everything immediately that we might hope for, but it would be really helpful to know about what programmes and capital projects are not going to go ahead, as people will not then waste time, energy and effort on planning for construction projects that will not happen. We would much rather that some effort were put into what is possible, and we would also like to have some flexibility and understanding with respect to the 16-hour rule.
	That rule governs what unemployed people can do to acquire and update their training and skills without losing benefit. It is really frustrating for people if they feel that the only way to maintain their jobseeker's allowance is to sit at home and not acquire new skills, for fear of losing their allowance.

Judy Mallaber: The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) will be pleased to know that, in view of the number of people who wish to speak, I will not go through all my facts and figures refuting the Opposition's motion. I want to highlight some positive examples; I have not sought them outI have not had time to do lots of researchbut came across them in the past few weeks. They are examples of the variety of circumstances in which people can gain skills, and of the opportunities available, all of which we should treasure and encourage. I also want to pay tribute to two friends who died recently, John Hett of the Midland Railway Centre and Paul Buckley, a Derbyshire county councillor. At their funerals, I discovered what they had done to enhance training.
	I want to reiterate the point made about the National Skills Forum report on closing the gender gap, and I urge Ministers to look at its recommendations. It is vital that we do not leave out certain groups in the downturn just because it is easy to do so, and that we make sure that the skills of women and others are enhanced. I chaired a report for the Business and Enterprise Committee last year called Jobs for the girls. These reports cover issues such as flexible training opportunities, including the possibility of offering part-time apprenticeships to enable people to go back into training, and to retrain after taking time out of the workplace. Some of the recommendations in those two reports are important, and I urge Ministers to have a look at them.
	In spite of the difficult times that we are experiencing, it is not all doom and gloom. In Derbyshire, we have doubled the number of apprenticeships. In a Westminster Hall debate last year, I gave a number of examples of cases in which employers were very positive about how Train to Gain had benefited their business. I am excited about going with Lord PuttnamDavid Puttnamto open a brand-new post-16 centre, the Phoenix centre, tomorrow. It is attached to the Aldercar community language college in my constituency. The centre is a 4.6 million facility funded by the Learning and Skills Council, and it certainly is not just about paper qualifications.
	The college has taken a lead in developing vocational qualifications, and every key stage 4 student has to do a vocational programme. Similarly, those doing vocational programmes have to do academic work so that they have the skills that employers need. The NEETnot in education, employment or trainingfigures for those who went there have more than halved in recent years, and it has a very good track record. The centre will offer AS and A2 programmes, but it will also offer apprenticeships, at the request of local industry. There will be post-16 industrial apprenticeships for local engineering and electrical companies. The centre is working with Caunton Engineering, structural steel engineers; with JTL, which is sending apprentices from local electrical companies; with Balfour Beatty Derby; and with the Advanced Composites Group. One cannot have a Formula 1 car without material from ACG in Heanor in my constituency.
	The centre is working to provide industrial apprenticeships for post-16 students. It is offering diplomas in a whole range of subjects, and it has programmes for physically impaired and hearing impaired students. It is working with the Key Stage 4 Support Centre in Derbyshire, where permanently excluded students from about 19 local secondary schools are got back into a two-day-a-week programme, to engage with getting nationally accredited status. It can hopefully then go on to get those students into work. The Phoenix centre, opening tomorrow, is very much about vocational education, giving people skills and qualifications and apprenticeships, and getting the involvement of people with disabilities and young people who have been permanently excluded from school. So there are very positive examples of work that is going on, and I am excited about going to the centre tomorrow.
	My second example is a local company, Manthorpe Engineering. I read an e-mail from it yesterday; it has asked me to support its application for planning permission so that it can extend its work. It says that despite the recession, it is still expanding, and expects to create an additional 75 high-performance jobs. It runs a successful apprenticeship programme with 21 young engineers, a high proportion of whom are educated at another local school, Mill Hill school. The company also offers work placements. Again, that is another positive example.
	I come now to my tributes to my friends, who died tragically young. We do not necessarily realise some of the work that is being done, but both cases that I shall mention show another way in which voluntary organisations have a role to play in reskilling and reinforce the fact that we must take every single opportunity that is offered.
	John Hett managed the midland railway museum amazingly and developed it over the past 30 years. A number of volunteers work at the museumfor example, a 24-year-old who had worked for a small engineering company that went bust. As a volunteer, he has been restoring steam and diesel locomotives. He has kept and developed his skills in a voluntary organisation because he is mad on railways. He now has a job with EWS freight hauliers, part of DB Schenker, based at Toten. Another volunteer had his own car maintenance company, which did not work out. He has been doing bodywork at the museum and now has a job with Bombardier train makers in Derby. In recent years, a number of people from the midland railway museum have got jobs with Bombardier that will end up being permanent.
	The museum has always taken on people on programmes such as the new deal, which helps to upskill and maintain the skills of those who have them and train those who have not had the opportunity to gain skills. For those who work in construction, the museum makes sure that they get their CSCSconstruction skills certification schemecertificate. It is important that voluntary organisations such as the museum can provide and develop skills. It developed a railway carriage with local youngsters, which was donated to a youth club in a deprived village in my constituency.
	I mentioned my county councillor, Paul Buckley. I knew of his commitment to the Derbyshire unemployed workers centre, but I did not realise until I was preparing to speak at his funeralhe died, tragically, at the age of just 43that he had wanted to train as an advice worker at the unemployed workers centre. He was unable to do so because he was virtually blind from an earlier disability, so he went on to get involved in the workers centre and ended up as its chair. I did not know until his funeral that he had been encouraging a young man at the unemployed workers centre in Chesterfield to use the new IT now available to train as an advice worker, which Paul had not been able to do previously when the IT was not available. We should not think of training only in particular categories; it can happen in all kinds of circumstances.
	Many positive things are happening, but Lord Puttnam asked me to raise some of the downsides. We must make sure that employers are on the ball. Skillset is one of the two most successful pathfinders, the old sector skills council, which provides technical training for film, television and digital. Apparently, Ofcom allowed ITV to pull out of some of its public service obligations. ITV subsequently announced that it was pulling out of Skillset. ITV should realise that it will need those skills in the future and that it is absurd for it to pull out of the organisation providing them. However, there are many positive examples, and I will be going to help open the wonderful new centre in my constituency tomorrow.

Ian Taylor: I shall try to reskill myself and be brief. Perhaps the House should take part in such a programme, as many of the arguments have been made in various ways from those on the Front Benches.
	I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who has done an amazing amount of work on skills. I especially appreciate that because I chaired the Conservative party's policy review on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and we have worked in harmony. I mention mathematics not least out of disappointment: I do not know what Carol Vorderman has that I have not got, but the party appears to have preferred her to be the mathematics tsar, rather than me. Nevertheless, I shall thoroughly enjoy working with her.
	Too much of the debate, if I may say so, has been about infrastructure, buildings and the cost of buildings, rather than what goes on inside them, which is important to young people and to older people who wish to reskill themselves. As a sort of Foster review of expenditure on facilities is under way, I hope that it will take into account the opportunities that a recession gives for renegotiating construction contracts to get better value for money so that it can go further.
	Secondly, and I feel passionate about this, I hope that in any re-evaluated scheme more effort can be put into providing laboratories for science experiments. Too often, schools do not have those facilities, and that is one of the reasons science is less exciting to young people in our schools than it should be.
	That brings me to the key point. We are in a recession and it will last for time enough in any young person's life. We need to make even more effort to ensure that young people get the opportunity to learn things that will be useful to them in the broadest sense and that they understand what skills they need if they are to be employable. For example, it is perverse that in this country the number of young people who have applied for university degrees in IT subjects has been declining just when demand for those skills has been rising. Indeed, if one listens to the experts, it seems that during this recession demand for IT skills will be at least stable if not increasing. Why is that happening?
	Why do we still struggle to get enough young people to learn physics and chemistry, despite the wonderful efforts of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry to encourage the training of teachers or at least to provide the opportunities for their retraining? Our universities have had a real problem not only in getting people to study the sciences but in ensuring that people are retained in teaching. One of the big efforts that I hope the Government will make is to use the recession as an opportunity to capture at least those who are now studying sciences at university and get them to go into teaching.
	Interestingly, the recession in the finance industry is at least an opportunity for the Government. In 2002, 6 per cent. of physics graduates entered the world of finance; by 2007, that had risen to 19 per cent. Efforts are already being made to encourage graduates to go into teaching, but if our schoolchildren are to get science opportunities at school, it is essential that they get them from people who have done the relevant science at university. In many schools, I am afraid, biology teachers, who are regarded as having done science, teach physics and chemistry as well; they often mug it up the night before. I am not being disrespectful to themand the children are lucky to have biology teachersbut I have talked to such teachers in my constituency and I realise their struggle to keep up. It is therefore hardly surprising that young people are not as inspired as we try to get them to be by the wonders and problem solving that physics and chemistry can lead to.
	This country has produced remarkable engineers, who should be an inspiration to young people. However, it is no good their being inspirational if there are no teachers to teach the subject. I ask the Secretary of State to make more effort, please, to make sure that young people are inspired to do those important things.
	Finally, there is a lot of talk about big areas of effort that we should make in this country. Often, however, they are not related to jobs likely to be on offerat least, not in the same numbersto British people. For example, I hear an awful lot about green technologies. I am all in favour of them; they are one of the areas of science and engineering that we need to stimulate. However, in terms of our skills, they do not exist in this country. Many of the windmills and wind turbines that we might be able to bring forward from research into practical application are going to be made abroad.
	Furthermore, the Government have rightly encouraged the nuclear industry to bring forward plans, and by 2020 I hope that the next generation of nuclear technology will come into application. However, the skill sets are just not there. In a recession, in particular, we need to do a series of things: first, train people with the basic skills that they require; and, secondly, ensure that there is a match between the skill sets that they might think they want and the demand the Government are producing. If we are saying that there will be a nuclear industry reborn by 2020, then let us ensure that we are encouraging schools and universities to run courses for nuclear physicists and engineers.
	This is a very important debate that has been well stimulated by my Front-Bench colleagues on an Opposition day. I hope that the Government draw lessons from it instead of just getting into competitive debating about the amount of money that might be spent. Money is important, but what goes on in the institutions is even more important.

Tom Levitt: Much of what I have to say complements the remarks made by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) in his very constructive contribution.
	If we were not in a recession, the message for British industry would be this: what we need is a high-skill, high-wage economy if Britain is to compete successfully on the global stage. That would mean investing in the skills of our work forceinvesting now for the skills that we will need in 20 years' time. We must get those whose basic skills are not on the NVQ ladder up on to that ladder, and help those who are halfway up to reach the top. As we are in a recession, the message to business and industry must surely be exactly the same: if Britain is to compete successfully on the global stage, what we need is a high-skill, high-wage economy. We have to look now at where we want to be at the end of this recession; we have to look now at the skills that we need in a rapidly changing globalised economy; and we have to be aware of what our competitors are doing, not only in the UK market but abroad. The mantra of education, education, education has never been more important for the British economy or for the fulfilment of British people than it is today. We do not yet know how the measures that we have put in place in schools will have benefited the future skills of the work force and the future economy, but we know that they will have done.
	In the late 1970s, when I started teaching science, the comprehensive school where I worked had courses in rural studies, car mechanics, home economics and many other subjects, all designed to engage the less academic pupilto bring qualifications, where they were earned, in skills other than those demanded by universities, and to give a whole swathe of young people a purpose in education which otherwise they might have missed. However, such courses disappeared rapidly, and by the end of the recession of the early '80s very few schools were still teaching them. The iron fist of the Conservatives' national curriculum had come in. It had reduced diversity in schools, reduced opportunity for the many, and reduced the ability of young people of lower academic levels to gain qualifications and specialise in subjects of their choice. One day in 1983 or thereabouts, a young boy came to see me, just weeks before he was due to leave school at 16. This inoffensive youth with a shy smile had got an apprenticeship to go to. He was made upover the moon. But the following week he was more withdrawn than ever, and would not even make eye contact with me or anyone else. I asked him what was wrong, and he showed me a letter. The apprenticeship had been cancelled: Government cuts, it said. That must not happen again.

Brian Binley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tom Levitt: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, as other people wish to speak.
	The staying-on rate in our schools has improved, but it is not as good as it should be. However, the decision to raise from 16 to 18 the age at which one can leave formal education for good is a real investment in the future. It ensures that every 16-year-old who does not want to stay on at school will still have a placefull-time or part-time, in college or as a day-release student, or in some other combination of training and workthat ensures that the skills habit becomes part of their working lives. The first children to whom that will apply started their secondary school careers last September.
	Good employers have always valued skills and training. Learndirect and union learning representatives contribute, too. I am delighted that as a result of these measures an increasing number of good employers are out there. How do I know that? I know it because of the genuine success that Train to Gain is having, even at this difficult time for industry and the economy. Tens of thousands of employers and hundreds of thousands of employees have already been in touch with the Learning and Skills Council and met their skills brokerspeople whose job it is to match the right employee with the right training.
	I attended a conference in Eastwood in Nottinghamshire last Friday and the enthusiasm and interest that employers from throughout the east Midlands showed there was incredibleit was wonderful to behold. Employers know that invest to save makes sense, and that investing in skills now to get on in the future is a good way of investing their money.
	At the same time, this Government have trebled the number of apprenticeships to nearly a quarter of a million, with more to come. Ten years ago, apprenticeships were regarded as a thing of the past, but I am delighted that Tarmac will create dozens of apprenticeships in my constituency this year through its cement-making operation, despite the problems that the construction industry currently has. There are still goods and materials that need to be created for others to userecession or no recession. The manufacture of such materials will require different skills from those that their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago required.
	Companies know that they can bring skills into their industry by looking to the international market and buying them in, but that is not the sustainable way of doing things. Tarmac has recognised something of the philosophy of the JesuitsGive me an apprentice when they are young and I will create the skilled craftsman and woman of the future. This is an example of invest to saveinvesting to make profits in the future, and investing in the quality of the work forceand it is an example of why the current debate about foreign workers is so wrong. We have created 2 million British jobs, which were all available to British workers, and many of them have been taken up by British workers. We have never had more British people in work than we did in 2008, and there are hundreds of thousands of British workers working elsewhere in the European Union, with the same basic rights and protection as they would have here. There are 400,000 vacancies in the British economy, and we want to create more. Jobs need doing in the caring professions, as we have heard, in manufacturing for export and in green technology. If we are serious about giving British workers the skills to compete with the best in the world, British jobs for British workers is a legitimate aim. I stress, as my noble Friend Lord Campbell-Savours did in another place yesterday, that British jobs for British workers is not the same thing as British workers for British jobs.
	In the east midlands, our economy has been hit by the downturn in the motor trade, and companies in my constituency that are involved in the supply of parts for the motor trade have been affected, such as Federal-Mogul, which makes brake linings, and Otter Controls, which makes thermostats. Just down the road, near Derby, we have the European training centre for Toyota, one of the world's largest companies. It is the largest producer of cars in the world, and last week it announced record losses on its balance sheets, but it is not a company planning to economise on skills. It knows that to compete at the cutting edge of international trade, it needs an ever-changing mix of the right high-calibre skills. It is willing to invest when times are lean in order to make the good times happen sooner, and better, than they would otherwise.
	As for further and higher education, the university of Derby has a campus in my constituency, and a couple of years before it moved to that campus, it merged with High Peak college in Buxton. The principal reason for that was that the high-quality vocational qualifications provided by the college in fields such as catering, tourism and hospitality could not attract an international market because the college did not have university status. Those institutions were put together and the merger worked. The university upholds the principle of excellence for all; I am proud that it is in High Peak, bringing young blood into our communities, and providing opportunities for people with learning disabilities and other disabilities.
	One of the roles of jobcentres is to talk to workers facing redundancy not just about counselling and benefits, but about the training that might be available and job opportunities, too. Those workers need to ask themselves what skills they will need to get back into the work force as soon as possible if they are made redundant, bearing in mind that there are 400,000 vacancies in our economy. Where can they get the skills that they need, and who will pay for the courses? Jobcentres are on hand to provide that information, and to work with skills brokers to provide a comprehensive system of support.
	A weakness in the system is that some employers are actually refusing the support and help that is available, and are not allowing jobcentre staff to come on to their premises to talk to workers who are facing redundancy. To get out of this recession with as few wounds as possible, we need to have all sides working together. I urge companies considering redundancies to make sure that their people have access to advice and the opportunity to gain the skills that they need at this difficult time. I ask my friends in the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that these partnerships happen. People facing redundancy have a right to support, and their soon-to-be-former employers have no right to deny it to them.
	We are pulling together with schools, colleges, universities, trade unions and increasing numbers of employers, who all recognise the need for developing skills. Together with the Government, they are committed to making sure that skills are generated for the economy of the future and the fulfilment and happiness of our people.

Phil Willis: Before I came to the House I spent 34 years in teaching, and most of that time was spent in depressed areas of Leeds, the north-east and Middlesbrough. For the last 20 years of that time, I was the head teacher of two very large comprehensives, and the great tragedy of my life in teaching is that when I finished, the same sort of students were failing in our school system as when I started. Successive Governments have failed to achieve the effective training of young people, not only for the economy of tomorrow but for the life of tomorrow.
	Despite the depressing start to the debate made by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), I would like to put on record the fact that the Government have, during the past 10 years, placed a real emphasis on the skills agenda. They set up a national skills taskforce, and asked Lord Leitch to complete his seminal report, which analysed the skills of the nation. They brought all the major parties together to agree that skills are highly important. We might disagree about how we implement the policy, but that agreement has been achieved. It is rather sad to see that that consensus appears to be on the wane today.
	The Leitch analysis is central to how we regard the problem. Leitch analysed the skills that we need not simply for today, but for the emerging economy of 2020. If all our concentration is on the huge problems of today's recession, we will miss the opportunity to provide our work force with the skills that they need for tomorrow. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) put his finger on one of the key issues: it is not just a matter of providing skillsI shall return to the question of skills and qualificationsbut of providing the right skills for the jobs of tomorrow. The STEM agendascience, technology, engineering and mathematics is absolutely fundamental to that. We have learned a significant lesson over the past six to nine months about depending heavily on the service sector, particularly the financial services sector, for our economy. It used to be the proud boast that we were the financial centre of the world, but once that imploded, we were left short in the area of actually making things. We need to build the skills of tomorrow such as our science base, which is second only to that of the United States, and our engineering prowess, which ranks alongside that of any nation in the world.

John Pugh: Does my hon. Friend not admit that a few years ago, financial skills were seen as the skills of tomorrow? We were wrong then, and we could quite easily be wrong now, too.

Phil Willis: I readily accept that we do not live in a certain world, and we have never experienced anything like the current recession before. We have never seen the collapse of global capitalism in such a way, because nations such as China and India were never part of a global capitalist system before. My point is that being so heavily reliant on the service sector has caused major problems during this economic downturn. I am imploring the Minister, when looking at the skills agenda, to have 2020 constantly in sight, as Lord Leitch recommended, and not simply to concentrate on the here and now. That is a major issue.
	One of the central planks of Lord Leitch's report, which the Government readily accepted, was upskilling the nation to OECD standards. It is an attractive proposition to say that by growing the number of qualifications, we grow more skills and greater productivity and wealth creationbut in reality that is a flawed model, especially in the current situation. We need upskilling, as Lord Leitch and the Government have accepted, but we also need an emphasis on reskilling. That does not simply mean people who were in one area of employment reskilling for another. All of us, particularly in the House, are constantly looking to reskill. One sad characteristic of our nation is that the higher up the academic scale someone goes, or the higher up in a company, the more access they have to retraining at the expense of people lower down the food chain. In our report, the Select Committee on Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills unashamedly stated that upskilling was central.
	Hon. Members have referred to the complexity of the Government's delivery system. I say to the Minister, in a spirit of comradeship, that the current system for delivering the skills agenda is not only complex but incoherent. Chris Humphries, who is the chief executive of the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said to our Committee that there was not an employer in the land who understood the current system. He said that when the chairman of the UKCES was appointed, 60 organisations contacted the chairman to say that they were essential in delivering the skills agenda. It is important that the Government keep an eye on that.
	The Government have said that employers should lead the skills agenda both of today and of tomorrow. They were right to do that, as skills are central. I have commented before in the House that apprenticeships without the involvement of employers should not be called apprenticeships. I hope that in his closing remarks, the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills will assure the House that in the drive to include further education colleges and other public sector organisations in ratcheting up the number of apprenticeships, we will not go down the road of programme-led apprenticeships with no employer involved. I earnestly hope that the Government will support that point of view.
	Employer-led schemes using Train to Gain were a great idea when Lord Leitch delivered his report, but we must remember that he carried out his analysis when the economic cycle was on the up, employment was virtually full and we were looking forward to yet more quarters of unprecedented quarter-on-quarter growth. Employers are now shedding labour. They are not looking to take on apprentices, and in many cases, despite what the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) said about his constituency, they are not looking to provide skills for workers. They are trying to cut their costs. There is not a Member in the House who would not accept that it would be tragic if that were all that was going to happen. I am looking to the Government not simply to keep to their mantra because they have set policy objectives, but to be fleet of foot and recognise that we have to make employers an attractive offer to maintain their training, and in particular to retrain and upskill their workers.
	I should like the Minister to respond to a point that I hoped the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) would make, if he had been in his place. A real problem is that this recession will hit 16 and 17-year-olds harder than any previous recession. Many skilled workers are coming on to the employment market. They are used to working, and employers are used to having them in their businesses, so they will become very attractive to employers when jobs are available. My concern is for 16-year-olds leaving school for whatever reason. I do not believe that the Government would be wise to raise the school leaving age this September. That would be a foolish mistake, as we would just have mass absenteeism. However, we must ensure that we make employers an attractive offer to employ 16-year-olds. If they are unemployed for three, six or nine months, in many cases that becomes a pattern for the rest of their lives.
	Why can a 19-year-old carry a 1,000 recruitment and retention premium for their employera golden hellowhereas a 16-year-old cannot? Why does a 19-year-old attract a 1,000 training premium, but a 16-year-old does not? The answer may well be, Well, we want those people to do apprenticeships. However, at the top of the employment boom, only one in 10 employers took on an apprentice. If we want to engage employers to take on 16-year-olds and help with their training and employment, we must be flexible with our policies. To hell with saying that there is a divide because of the machinery of Government. We need a comprehensive policy on careers guidance, employment and training to ensure that from the age of 16 onwards, everyone is entitled to a training package that is world class and second to none. That is a policy that my party and I will earnestly support.

Anne Snelgrove: Swindon is in the national economic spotlight, but it is one of the most productive towns in the country, with arguably the best business location and most highly skilled and hard-working work force. Yet even we are not isolated from the global downturn that is affecting every community in the developed world. There have been job losses in Swindon across all sectorsmanufacturing, distribution, finance and service. However, the Government are providing real help to give people skills to get back to work. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, we are not going to turn our back on those who lose their jobs. I thank him for that commitment and add mine.
	As the House will know, Swindon has a strong connection with transport manufacturing, from railways to cars. Hon. Members will be aware that Honda, one of the biggest employers in south-west England, has closed its factory for four months, but its commitment to Swindon is not in any doubt. About 1,200 people will continue to work full time at the plant during the shutdown, and the remaining 2,500 employees will receive their full basic pay, without shift bonuses, for the first two months. That will be reduced to 60 per cent. for the rest of the period. Honda has made that commitment to Swindon because it does not want to lose its skilled work force. Although it has not asked the Government for any financial help, it has asked for help with skills training. I am very pleased by how the Government have responded, through the regional development agency and the Government office for the south-west.
	Businesses large and small across Swindon have been hit by the international financial storm. We hear about the Hondas, Tycos and Woolworths, but we do not hear about the one or two people made redundant by small businesses. My town has seen hard times before, such as the collapse of rail manufacturing 30 years ago, but due to the resilience of people in Swindon, it has recovered, attracted new businesses and emerged stronger. I have absolutely no doubt that, with the Government's support, it will do the same in future. It has the location and the motivated work force, but we need to keep our work force at a skills level that will compete with anywhere in Europe and the world. That is why Government commitment and, better still, Government action on training have been so important to us in the past few months.
	To that end, as a constituency MP I am working with the regional development agency to ensure that Honda, for example, gets the investment in skills that it needs to be sustainable in future. As deputy to the regional Minister, I have a responsibility for and interest in all businesses in the south-west. I was delighted by the RDA's response and by the fact that it is leading the region's response by helping businesses and their work force through the recession and by sustaining the economy in preparation for a return to growth. In Swindon, we have had a great deal of help from Steve Richards, the head of business development at the RDA, and Tony Bray, its area director. I pay tribute to them and their colleagues for their good work.
	The RDA is working from the grass roots to the strategic level. I am sorry to say that Opposition Members have pledged to get rid of it, because they do not particularly want such regional support. Without it, there would be no co-ordination, no training packages and no one to work with Swindon's businesses. The RDA ensures that information is shared between agencies on, for example, skills shortages. That means that action on the ground is informed by current developments. It avoids duplication and maximises the effective use of scarce resources. Direct support has been given by investing an additional 450,000 in Learning Works for All, which the south-west TUC runs. It promotes training in businesses.
	Last year, I visited the trade union centre at New college in Swindon to talk to regional manager Helen Cole about unionlearn's work. I was told about U-Net, the recently launched network of learning centres across the south-west, and I met people who have benefited from learning at work. It is a great example of what happens when unions, employers and further education work together. Representatives have worked hard to place learning on employers' agendas and I applaud their work, which is even more important during a recession.
	The RDA also provides direct support by extending the graduates in business scheme, which places graduates with local businesses beyond the original 2008 deadline, at a cost of 1.5 million.
	We are getting support for the region's strategic companies through a dedicated case officer, who can act as a broker for a company in dealing with the relevant public sector agencies, gathering information and championing issues that the business raises. That is important and our local businesses have asked for it. They do not have time to make all those contacts and it is vital that we have an organisation such as the RDA to do it for them.
	Through management of the regional Business Link franchise, the RDA has supported a stronger focus on helping employers access a range of skills services and advice, including Train to Gain and the leadership and management training programme. In contrast, the Conservative party would abolish the Train to Gain workplace training programme. In tough economic times, people need more, not fewer opportunities to train. Why would Conservatives phase out the contribution to the apprenticeship programme?
	In my office, I employ an apprentice, Jennylee, who is studying for an NVQ in administration. She does four days a week in my office and one day a week in college. It is a good thing for other hon. Members to get involved in. Jennylee is a great asset to our office, and would be to any apprenticeship scheme. Some members of my family who did not go on to higher education trained as apprentices. My cousin Barrie, who is still with the same company that he joined as an apprentice some 25 years ago, is a shining example of how someone can become an apprentice at an early age and work through the ranks to a responsible and highly paid job. I commend the Government for bringing back apprentices. During Barrie's time as an apprentice in the 1980s, apprenticeships were cut by the Thatcher Government.
	The Government are providing real help for people to get and keep jobs. No one who is worried about losing a job will be left without support. Such support will be available for everyone who is at risk or who has recently lost a job, not only the long-term unemployed. Colleges and other training providers are being asked to bid for funds and that means that people can get the help they need without having to go to the jobcentre.
	My constituents have benefited enormously from the funding that the Labour Government have given to rebuild colleges locally. Recently, New college completed a 4.08 million project for classroom extensions and refurbishment, of which 1.02 million came from the Learning and Skills Council. Before that, the college had another project for classrooms and a sports hall. Projects are under way and being completedI am sure that recent delays will soon be sorted out.
	Swindon college is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) and I understand that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is due to visit it next week. It has had a 15.5 million project to rebuild the college on the North Star site. I hope that my hon. Friend will see how successful it has been and the good work that the college does in the vocational sector.
	Further education in Swindon has done well under Labour. By 1997, the Conservatives had let further education go to rack and ruin. I was in education for many years and I saw it happen. There was simply no capital spend on FE. Any complaints from the Torieswe heard some todayare therefore simply opportunistic.
	The priority remains securing the survival of viable businesses and retaining jobs, but it is also important to plan for the upturn and help businesses such as Honda and its supply chain ensure that they are fit for the future. There are several challenges: ensuring that there is a viable supply chain; supporting the development of the next generation of products; andmost essentiallysupporting the retention of a skilled and motivated work force who are well placed to respond to increased demand. The Government are up for that. They are providing the support, and I hope that hon. Members of all parties will back the Government's work on such important matters.

Brian Binley: I have been disappointed in the debate. It is important, but I have heard too much party political point scoring and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) said, too much about fabric and structure and too little about the quality of provision. The latter is what genuinely counts. I have heard little from a business perspective, or from the perspective of those who need retraining and reskillingand a basic form of education to allow them to go on to be retrained and reskilled.
	I want to present a point of view from the business sector. I tell Government Front Benchers that many people are deeply concerned about the quality of basic education in our schools. It is no good talking about reskilling and upskilling unless we also discuss basic primary and secondary education. We are not getting the quality of people that we need to compete in the modern world. Unless the Government recognise that, we could fail to meet the objectives that we all support. I want some answers, and I want the Government to express some concern about the matter.
	Let me say a little about Leitch. He said that 5 million people in Britain have been classified as functionally illiterate and that 17 million are known to have problems with basic numeracy. More than one third of British adults do not have basic school-leaving qualificationsdouble the proportion in Germany and Canada. Twenty-eight per cent. of British workers are qualified to apprentice, skill, craft and technician level, compared with 51 per cent. in France and 65 per cent. in Germany. We have a genuine skills problem. To deny it would be foolish, but I am not sure that the genuine concern that I would expect to emanate from the Government, especially in a difficult time, exists.
	The Confederation of British Industry said that more than half British firms are concerned that they cannot find enough skilled staff to meet their future recruitment needs. If that is the case, we will fail to meet the global challenge. We will get out of recession in three or four years, and we need to be ready so that we can benefit from the green shoots that will emerge. I am fearfulso is British industrythat we will not have the skills to do that.

John Pugh: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that British industry has not been an unparalleled success in training workers?

Brian Binley: I was about to deal with that point, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has prompted me. In a survey by the British Chambers of Commerce, more than 80 per cent. of British companies spend 100 or more per employee and 50 per cent. spend 250 or more per employee on training. More than 75 per cent. spend time identifying staff training needs, and more than 60 per cent. evaluate the effectiveness of the training for which they pay. Only 3.8 per cent. said that training was not a priority. British business and commerce are interested in training and they could not run their companies unless they were. It is foolish to claim otherwise, and it is about time that we knocked the myth on the head.

John Pugh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Brian Binley: I would rather not, because time is limited and other hon. Members want to speak.
	British business is ready, willing and able to receive help with training and it wants to be involved. The problem is that all too often we do not talk to British business about training. We do not do outreach work; nor do we take training packages into the workplace in anywhere near the numbers needed. We do not get British business men on our skills councils in the way that we need to. It is a difficult task, but we do not make the effort to get out there and talk to businessI can tell that to hon. Members as a business man myself. Indeed, I am told by businesses the length and breadth of the country that that is the fact of the matter.
	The trouble is that skills training is seen as an extension of education. Education likes to keep its skills and expertise to itself, but it needs to get out there and invite business into areas of educational activity, so that its point of view and good ideas can be put forward and so that they can help in this particularly important project. We need to reach out to business and involve it. We need to take training packages into the workplace and make them bespoke.
	Let me tell the Government Members here that of the 17 members of the skills council in my area, only four had a business background andare Government Members listening?that most of those were politicos. There was barely one business man on the skills council in his own right. That may be a fault of business. However, from the information that I have, I believe that the fault lies very much with those who run the skills councils, for not reaching out effectivelyand by golly, if there was ever a need to do so, it is in this area.
	My second point is about those areas where we have failed to achieve the levels of quality that we need in this country if business, commerce and technology are to thrive and meet the global challenge that we are all so concerned about. I talk, of course, of our failure in applied sciences and technology, and similar areas of training. I do not need to tell the Government that the proportion of first degrees taken in STEM subjectsscience, technology, engineering and mathsis 25 per cent. of the total. In China, the figure is 50 per cent. of the total. Indeed, many other advanced economies reach that sort of level. We have failed abysmally to ensure that we train the scientists, technicians and technologists whom we will need to face the global challenge that we keep talking about, and which I am particularly concerned about.
	It is true that there has been some increase in STEM graduates over the past five years. However, among those taking STEM A-levelsthe next generation of graduatesthere has been a 15 per cent. decline in those taking mathematics, a 14 per cent. decline in physics and a 47 per cent. decline in computer science. Those figures come from a report by the Council for Industry and Higher Education, so it is not a political point that I am making. However, it is a point that the Government should be greatly concerned about and one that they should act upon. Unless we ensure that we have the skilled technologists and scientists, we willI repeatfail.
	I want to conclude, because I know that others want to speak. First, we need to get out and involve business much more effectively in the training, skills and packages that we need to deliver to achieve a more trained and skilled work force. Unless we do so, we willI repeatmiss a massive opportunity. I fear that I have not heard enough from the Government about that. Secondly, we must ensure that we have the trained scientists and technologists, who will be at the heart of the global challenge that I have mentioned three or four times already. I have not heard enough from the Government about how they are going to achieve that objective either.
	Britain faces a particularly difficult recession and a particular challenge in competing in the world to earn our living. I have grandchildren. I want to see them living a life of well-being and being able to fulfil their ambitions. Unless we meet the challenges and overcome them, I fear that they will not be able to enjoy that well-being to the level that I would like. I urge the Government to give me some answers to the two major problems that I have raised.

Alan Simpson: This is an extremely important debate, but it has the capacity to lurch from the real to the surreal.
	I doubt whether any Member of the House would disagree with that part of the Opposition motion which reads:
	providing improved opportunities to up-skill and re-skill is more important than ever given the challenges posed by the recession,
	or with that part which
	calls on the Government to boost the number of apprenticeships.
	Given that context, however, it would not be unreasonable to expect the Opposition to recognise that by the time Labour came to power, the Conservatives had reduced the number of apprenticeships to 75,000. Under this Labour Government, that number has been increased to almost 250,000. Nor would it have been unreasonable to expect some recognition of the fact that when the Opposition left office, the completion rate for apprenticeships was down to around 22 per cent. Not only has Labour increased the numbers going into apprenticeships; we have trebled the numbers successfully completing apprenticeships. It would be helpful to provide that recognition.
	It would also appear reasonable to expect that anyone calling for a boost in the number of apprenticeships should also be saying that they would be able not only to match the current spending going into apprenticeships, but potentially to increase it. Instead, we are in the absurd position whereby the Opposition cannot even guarantee that their spending commitments will match Labour's as we enter the next decade, let alone say that they will be sufficient to take us through the entirety of that decade. That is where we drift into the surreal.
	I am reminded of the words of Aneurin Bevan, who cautioned politicians against the futility of willing the ends but not the means. That is what being in government involvestaking the responsibility. We have to will the means that take us to where we want to be at the end of the next decade.

Brian Binley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Alan Simpson: No, I am not going to accept any more interventions, because that just takes someone else's time.
	I would argue in favour of an increase in Government spending and in favour of the Government accepting the fiscal responsibilities of raising the cash to fund that expenditure. However, this will not avoid difficult decisions that have to be made along the way. The only thing that we can say about a recession is that it always contains the silver lining of allowing the Government to choose to come out of it in a different place from where we into it: so it is with the decisions that this House will face over the coming years.
	We have to be clear about the nature of the economic transformation that we face, which has to be rooted in our skills and apprenticeships programme. That is why, if we are to have an equivalent of Obama's Apollo programme moment, the blueprint or starting point for me would be the Government's Building a low-carbon economy document. We recognise that by 2010, there will be opportunities for so-called green-collar jobs in a global market that has the prospect of being worth $700 billion. Economic prospects, skills prospects and transformation prospects go hand in hand if we take them seriously.
	One of the problems that we face in doing that is recognising that our skills agenda can no longer be detached from changing the demand side of our economy. Other parts of the EU have been much more proactive in doing so. Britain needs to show some humility and follow suit. We already know that in the energy sector, the electricity companies are saying that even in a recession they anticipate a shortage of 9,000 jobs by 2015. We have to plan and train to fill these known gaps in the market, as well as the gaps that we expect to face in a market that we are seeking to transform.
	Obama has sought to do this with his own Apollo programme, making no apologies for the fact that it is rooted in a commitment to deliver 5 million jobs, on the basis of $150 billion of direct investment to transform the nature of the US economy into a more sustainable one. That, for me, is where Britain's future will be found as well.
	The House has made certain commitments in the Energy Act 2008. We have pledged to come back to the House and the country by 2010 with feed-in tariff schemes, along similar lines to those that already operate in Germany. Those schemes have delivered more than 250,000 new jobs in four years, and the domestic industry in Germany is now worth 30 billion.
	The thing that scares me, having done some work on the transformation of housing stock myself, is that, at every point during the kitting out of my house, the architects and the builders told me that we would have to source the various elements from Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden or Franceanywhere, in fact, apart from the UK. We know that we are going to change the nature of our domestic energy market. We need to change the skill bases of the apprenticeships that are being offered now to do so. We cannot wait until we start to transform the market, and then realise that the jobs are going to non-British workers because we have not delivered the skill base that our workers are entitled to expect from us, in order to access the jobs that we are generating. This is not rocket science; it is simply a matter of market and economic transformation.
	The same applies in relation to fuel poverty. The debate in the UK has been about the construction of up to 200,000 new houses a year, some of which might be eco-homes, after 2016. In reality, the challenge lies in the 25 million houses that people are living in today. The number of job and skill opportunities that exist for the refurbishment of that housing stock is vast. I have looked at some of the intervention schemes that are operating in other parts of Europe, and I want to convey to Members that the difficulties there are not about reaching out to young people who are not academic high-flyers and getting them into the schemes. The difficulty is in finding enough apprenticeships to cater for the demand. The young people there see the prospect of real jobs and real skills that will kit them out to deliver solutions in the 21st century, and they are queuing up to be part of that transformation process.
	We will not be able to shop our way out of the recession, but we will be able to build and transform our way out of it. That also applies in the context of transportation. I have heard numerous Members talk about initiatives that are being taken in the vehicle sector to maintain jobs. However, the real question is whether we can transform that whole sector, over the next five years, into one that delivers vehicles, all of which have to operate within a carbon emissions standard of 100 g/km. Other countries are already doing this, and if we do not, we will find that our kids just do not have the skills to deliver for tomorrow's sustainable market.
	My plea to the Minister is simply to continue to invest, and to increase the volume of investment, but also to tie training into the direct intervention measures to which other parts of the Government are committed. We need an approach to training and apprenticeships that is about joined-up doing, not just about joined-up saying. If we can achieve that, the generation of young people who are hungry for skills for the 21st century will be there to thank us, as will the fuel poor and those who want to be part of our carbon reduction agenda. Whole societies and communities will see that this is the shape of a better future. It will be different from the one left for us as an inheritance when we came into power in 1997. I had hoped that we could expect more from the Opposition, who say that they want to be part of that future, but who are just not prepared to put the money up to deliver it.

John Hayes: The Government's record on skills is one of failure, fallacy and falsehood. If we are to emerge stronger from the recession, to foster enterprise and innovation and to unlock individual potential, we must understand the true value of skills, as my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) made clear at the outset of the debate. That sentiment was echoed in the typically thoughtful speech made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) and also by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley).
	Although the Government inherited a strong, growing economy and benefited from 11 years of benign conditions, they are failing to skill the nation to meet economic need. It is not, as the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough suggested, that they have failed to grasp the central role that skills play in facilitating social mobility and the social justice that is at the heart of Conservatism; it is that the management and funding of skills are simply not fit for purpose.
	Through the good times, Ministers actually restricted the opportunity for people to improve their knowledge and skills. I was disappointed that the Secretary of State's speech, which was long on the avuncular style that he personifies but short on substance, failed to acknowledge that. He knows that, in colleges, workplaces and communities, there has been a shocking collapse in access to education and training.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Hayes: I will in a moment, because the hon. Gentleman always makes valuable, interesting and measured contributions to our considerationsand now that I have said that, he will not be unkind to me. He knows, as does the Minister, that enrolments in further education colleges have plummeted. There are now almost 1 million fewer learners than there were when Labour came to power. Perhaps he would like to intervene on me to defend that.

Rob Marris: I would like to invite the hon. Gentleman to have a word with his colleagues who are now running Wolverhampton city council in a rotten coalition with the Liberal Democrats. They are cutting 640,000 from the adult education budget. Now, I am not wild about what my Government have done about adult education, but these measures are really hitting home in Wolverhampton. Will he speak to his colleagues there, please?

John Hayes: I would be delighted to accept the hon. Gentleman's invitation to go to Wolverhampton, and I would expect to benefit from his largesse and hospitality when I do so.
	The figures published in December showed that enrolments in FE continue to fall. We also heard today about the awful situation in respect of capital spending. I acknowledge that the Secretary of State made it clear that he had launched an independent investigation into the problem. That itself is newsworthy, because he clearly does not want his own officials to investigate the matter. Instead, he has brought in a third party. I also acknowledge that he has said that it was unacceptable that ambitions were encouraged when they should not have been. However, that does not alter the fact that colleges up and down the country are facing an end to the capital ambitions that they put in place with the supportand often the encouragement, as the Secretary of State saidof those who should have known better. We look forward to debating that issue at greater length after 2 March, as the Secretary of State has promised.

Robert Wilson: I know that my hon. Friend has personally given a great deal of consideration to ways of widening participation. May I suggest that he looks at how community colleges in the USA have successfully integrated higher and further education, and done a great deal to widen participation there?

John Hayes: My hon. Friend also did a great deal of work on this, before his recent move. I share his view that one of the most effective ways of broadening participation is to allow more to be taught in FE. Sadly, there are many bureaucratic obstacles to that kind of expansion, but they are obstacles that a Conservative Administration would clear, allowing more people from under-represented groups to have a chance to go to college to study the courses that they wished to study and that would serve our society and the economy.
	The Government promised to revive apprenticeships, but they have actually succeeded in restricting access to high-quality, employer-based schemes. The Minister might be surprised to hear me say that, but he knows that the Government's record on apprenticeships is about as convincing as his colleague's performance on Mastermind. There are fewer people in advanced apprenticeshipsthe equivalent of all apprenticeships in countries such as Germanythan there were in 1999. The figure is down from 130,000 to just under 100,000. The number of young people starting an apprenticeship continues to decline at all levels.
	I agree with the hon. Members for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson)an old friend, who always makes useful contributions to these debatesthat apprenticeships are a critical way of ensuring that we develop high-level skills for an advanced economy, but I have to tell both of them that the only way to revitalise the apprenticeship system is from the bottom up, by encouraging more small and medium-sized enterprises to get involved with apprenticeships, and the only party with a practical plan for doing so is the Conservative party, the official Opposition.
	At a time of economic growth, perhaps most shocking of all is the number of young people not in any kind of education, employment or training: that number has actually grown since Labour came to power. In the past five years, nearly 100,000 have been added to their number and it has risen to almost 200,000 since the turn of the decade. I know that Members of good conscience cannot sit comfortably on the Government Benches when they know that an army of young people with unfulfilled potential and wasted talent has been raised on their watcha generation of broken lives and shattered dreams. How did a Government who had so much opportunity fail to provide opportunity for so many?

Judy Mallaber: Will the hon. Gentleman have a word with the Conservative-controlled Amber Valley borough council, because the budget cuts it has just made as a result of its financial incompetence has meant that programmes to help and encourage NEETs to get into education and training have had either to be put on hold or to be handed over to other organisations?

John Hayes: Let me say that, in my few moments of spare time, there is nothing I would like more than to visit Amber Valley, and I will certainly do so at the earliest opportunity.
	It is not just failure that characterises this Government's record on skills, as their attempt to perpetuate fallacies about what has been achieved is also characteristic. Ministers claim that they have built a demand-led system.

Tom Levitt: rose

John Hayes: I will not give way, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will also come to High Peak, as I know that that is what he wants to intervene about.
	We do not have a demand-led system; we have the same old centrally driven micro-managed supply-led system, but rebranded. Let us consider Train to Gain, about which we have heard so much: it is simply not fit for purpose. As John Stone of the Learning and Skills Network told the Education and Skills Select Committee,
	it is the sort of demand-led you get in a Russian supermarket.
	More recently, evidence was presented to the DIUS Select Committee, when one employer said:
	There is a clear mis-match here between some qualifications funded by... Train to Gain, and the skills required by industry.
	It was argued forcefully that Train to Gain, far from increasing skills, was
	having a serious negative impact on the UK skills base.
	Elsewhere still greater fallacies permeate the Government's record. Money to support training by individuals is divided between what the Learning and Skills Council calls adult learner responsive funding and adult safeguarded funding. The former supports training towards qualifications, but it is available only if an individual undertakes a full qualification, even though it is difficult for many people to study full time. We heard about that from the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). That entitlement is not available for those who now need to reskill in the recession. Adult safeguarded funding supports the kind of short adult and community courses that could play a central role in helping people to update their skills, but substantially more than 1 million adult and community learning places have been lost since 2005 and funding is set to continue to fall in real terms.
	As if failure to provide opportunity and the fallacy of a demand-led system were not bad enough, Ministers have added falsehood to their list of indictments. In recent weeks, we have seen a cascade of false claims and fake promises from DIUS. We have had the promise of a national internship scheme with no new internships. We have had the promise of new apprenticeships, when apprenticeship starts for young people are actually declining. We have had the bogus promise of retraining at universities, when the Government's decision to cut funding for second chance education has, in fact, cut access to university for those who want to study equivalent and lower qualifications. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends who fought such a fierce campaign in defence of Birkbeck college, the Open university and other institutions most damaged by those cuts.
	What we need is not fake announcements, but a response to the recession built on a demand-led training system. We need opportunities for people to reskill and upskill. That means freeing further education from the byzantine bureaucracy of the LSC and its successors and rebuilding the broken infrastructure of adult and community learning. Adult and community learning does not simply fulfil an economic purpose; it also changes lives by changing life chances, it feeds civic engagement and it builds democratic citizenship. We need to boost the number of apprenticeships and the teaching and testing of those practical competences that are needed.
	That is why the Conservatives will create a self-regulated FE sector, funded by a single streamlined agency. That is why we will put 100,000 more apprenticeships in the system each year and give a 2,000 bonus for each apprentice employed at a small or medium-sized enterprise. It is why we will put in place an all-age independent careers service as advocated by the hon. Member for Bristol, West in his speech and by us in our Green Paper. In place of failure, fallacies and falsehood, we need a fitting response to the recession, a proper concentration on skills, a determination to allow people to fulfil their potential and to feed the economic good that we seek as a House and, I hope, as a nation.
	There are many people who criticise the Minister. Some people say that he is not up to the job, many of those on his own Benches. I will not repeat the claims that have been made on websites and elsewhere not because they are simply rude and unparliamentary, but because I do not believe them. I think that the hon. Gentleman is going to stand up today and acknowledge much of what I said. I think that he is going to apologise to the adult learners who have lost their places. I think he is going to admit that apprenticeship numbers are declining. I think he is going to argue that the Conservatives are right about the need for a streamlined system for the funding and management of skills. I have faith in the Minister, even if others do not. In place of Labour's fear and strife, we need a Government true to their principles, honest about their intentions and determined to succeed, not for themselves but for the people they serve. We need new hope, a new Britain, a new Conservative Government.

Si�n Simon: Many people have spoken this afternoon and several contributors have said that they found the debate rather disappointing. I think that, with the exception of that from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the contributions from Front Benchers have been very disappointing.  [Interruption.] For those who have been here throughout the debate, however, the contributions from Back Benchers have been interesting, constructive and worthwhileand that is almost as true of the Opposition Back Benchers as of the Government Back Benchers.
	As for what we heard about apprenticeships from both Opposition Front-Bench teams, all I will say is that it was extraordinary nonsense. The hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said that we needed more apprenticeships, especially for those aged 19 and above. In 1996, when the Conservatives were in charge, there were 67,000 apprenticeships; last year, there were 225,000and next year there will be an additional 35,000 specifically in response to the recession. Yet Conservative Members tell us that we need more!

Rob Marris: Does my hon. Friend, like me, find it shocking that the Conservative Front-Bench team, in the motion and the winding-up speech, today made seven large spending commitments? The Conservatives will not put a price on them, yet their leader is saying that they will cut funding by 610 million. Is that not shameless of them?

Si�n Simon: It is shameless, but it is not shocking. The hon. Member for Havant wants more apprenticeships for the over-19s, yet if he had his 610 million spending cuts, there would be no new apprenticeships for that age group and there would still be 427 million of cuts to find from the science budget, the rest of the skills budget and the universities budget.

John Hayes: I was very nice when I spoke about the hon. Gentleman. Will he make it clear whether the number of level 3 apprenticeships has risen or fallen on this Government's watch?

Si�n Simon: The hon. Gentleman was not nice; he was just not quite as rude as he was previously. Let us be clear about that; let us also be clear that the total number of apprenticeships has gone up massively on this Government's watch; and let us be clear that the difference between level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships is a matter for business, not the Government, which the hon. Gentleman would know if he were a bit more interested in government and a bit less interested in cheap point scoring.
	Speaking for the Liberal Front-Bench team, the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) said that for the last 15 or 20 years there has been no recession. I thought that an interesting choice of phrase. It made the position seem a bit random, as though it did not matter which party was in power. The truth is that for the last 12 to 15 years, since the end of the last Tory recession, there has been no recession.
	The hon. Gentleman said that during his three and a half years as a Member of Parliament, he had observed that Members never mentioned the Leitch report in debates such as this. I was surprised when he said that, because in the mere four months for which I have held this position, I have found that people go on and on about the Leitch report. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we remain committed to the report's underlying thrust and ambitions, such as the creation of 400,000 apprenticeships in England by 2020.
	The hon. Gentleman also said that the thrust of the Leitch report was upskilling, whereas the current challenge related to reskilling. His hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), made the same point later in the debate. I do not see a contradiction between the two. I think that we need to reskill now, at the same time as upskilling for the future. It has to be the same job, and I think that we are doing that job.
	I was not sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) entirely understood what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about capital expenditure. I thought my right hon. Friend made it quite clear that there was no freeze in the capital programme, and that none of the money was not being spent. In fact, 110 million is being brought forward to this year and 100 million to the following year. The programme is being accelerated. What has happened is that expectations have not been managed as they should have been, and there is now more demand in the system than can be met in the current budgetary period. That is what the Secretary of State apologised for, and that is what the independent Foster review is examining.

Stephen Williams: The Minister says that the problem has been caused by too much in the way of expectations. Who built up those expectations?

Si�n Simon: That is what the independent review is about. That is what the Secretary of State has said. We think it unacceptable that some colleges were allowed to believe that their programmes would go ahead according to a timetable that it now seems may not go ahead. That is what we are looking into and trying to put right.

David Burrowes: Will the Minister give way?

Si�n Simon: No, I will not. I have no time.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central cited the specific case of a college in his constituency. I understand that problems of the same type have been experienced by other Members. A multi-phase project received approval in principle for all its phases, but detailed approval was needed for each phase. We are sensitive to that problem, and I am discussing ways of finding solutions to it with the Learning and Skills Council. My hon. Friend and I were due to meet and discuss the matter, but were not able to do so. I should be happy to rearrange the meeting.

Mary Creagh: The new Whitwood campus, in the neighbouring constituency of Pontefract and Castleford, will open in a couple of weeks. May I ask my hon. Friend to visit that brand-new vocational training campus, and to speed up approval for the city centre campus in Wakefield about which he and I have spoken in private?

Si�n Simon: I am very grateful for that kind invitation, but I suspect that my hon. Friend has so many Cabinet Ministers on her doorstep that she can do better than me. However, if she is still stuck, I should be more than happy to come.
	The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made an insightful and thoughtful contribution. I do not think I disagreed with anything that he said. He made the case for bite-sized chunks of learning; he made the case for unitisation of the qualifications credit framework, which we are moving towards; he made the case for replacing the LSC with a slimmed-down, more demand-led, more responsive body, which is exactly what we are doing; and he made the case for strategic skills. In fact, he talked such good sense about those matters that I am beginning to wonder whether he really is a proper Tory.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) is an extraordinary representative who speaks for the grass roots in her constituency. She showed us that further education really is at the heart of the communityacross the country and in Amber Valley, where she is an outstanding Member of Parliamentand that further education colleges are for the whole community, from 16-year-olds to 106-year-olds, from the first steps towards literacy and numeracy to degrees, one in 10 of which are delivered in further education settings. She gave us concrete examples of the fact that the billions of pounds of investment in maintenance of people's lives to which the Government are committed to makes a real difference on the ground.
	The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) enlightened us all about how it feels not to be Carol Vorderman. He said that he wanted the capital programme pause, as it has been called, to be used for the purpose of renegotiation and seeking better value. I am not sure that that is what we want to do. I think that we want as little renegotiation as possible, and as much business as usual as possible.

John Hayes: Will the Minister give way?

Si�n Simon: No thanks.
	Last year's National Audit Office report was extraordinary. It was a report such as the NAO rarely produces, unreservedly praising the work of the Building Colleges for the Future programme. I think that the programme has delivered value for money so far. It has certainly delivered some outstanding buildings.
	My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) spoke of his own experience of the disastrous effect of a Tory recession on skills, employees and employers, contrasting it with the resilience that he observes on the ground in his constituency and the Labour response to a global downturn. He spoke of Tarmac's Jesuitical determination to invest in skills during a recession. He is right: business and Labour are in tune on skills. It is the Tories who are all over the place.
	A member of the Select Committee who is no longer in the Chamber described what I consider to be a false dichotomy between investing in skills now and investing in future skills. I shall discuss the detail of what he said when he returns. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) spoke outstandingly on behalf of her constituents. Like me, she is a car MP. She told us of the difficulties experienced by Honda, and how the Government are working with Hondajust as they are with Nissanto make skills part of the car industry's response to recession.
	The hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) told us that there was too much political point scoring in the debate. I can only suggest to him that if his taste for political point scoring is not great, rather than attending Tory Opposition day debates he should try to get on to the Committee that will consider the Children, Skills and Learning Bill, which I think is about to begin its work and will run until, I think, 2017.
	I first met my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) before either of us entered the House. I have therefore waited almost 20 years to be able to say this. I agreed with every word that he said. I quaked a bit when he stood up, but I was grateful for his support.
	As a Government, we are doing all that we can to help employers, workers and families through this difficult time. We are investing 4.5 billion a year in crafting the skills base that the economy needs. Since 2006, Train to Gain alone has supported the training of more than 780,000 people and 120,000 businesses, enabling 370,000 individuals to obtain formal qualifications. We have allocated 158 million to pay for 35,000 more apprenticeship places with major employers such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Superdrug and Phones4U. We have allocated an additional 350 million to Flexibilities and Train to Gain. We have trebled the number of personal and community development learning programmes.
	We will not slash 610 million from our budgets as the Tories would, because we know that the answer to recession is investing in people. We will not leave generations on the scrap heap of unemployment as the Tories did, and we will not leave hard-working families to face the world recession alone as the Tories would.
	 Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 218, Noes 308.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the proposed words be there added.
	 Question  accordingly  agreed to.
	 The Deputy Speaker declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2)).
	 Resolved,
	That this House commends the Government's efforts to boost the number of apprenticeships, provide more support to young people not in employment, education or training, and improve opportunities for adult learners and introduce an adult advancement and careers service; welcomes the real help provided to those affected by the downturn, including increasing the support available through the further education and skills systems; further welcomes the 240 million allocated to help those facing redundancy or newly unemployed; welcomes the additional 140 million to boost apprenticeships, the trebling of Professional and Career Development Loans, and making the Train to Gain programme more responsive, including through 350 million support for small and medium-sized enterprises; notes the Government's planned investment of 2.3 billion in renewing and modernising further education facilities over this spending review; commends its efforts to help colleges and universities become more responsive to the employer's needs, including the 50 million Higher Education Funding Council for England economic challenges fund, and to ensure the 175 billion public procurement budget maintains and strengthens investment in skills; further welcomes the simplification of existing systems; further notes that three million people access the skills system every year, with more 18 to 24 year olds working or engaged in full-time education compared to 1997; further notes the number of students in higher education in England is rising, not falling; and further notes that the Government will resist calls to cut skills budgets, as this would undermine the steps being taken to provide real help to business and individuals now.'.

Martin Salter: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Could you give us some guidance as to what remedies are available to the House to establish an accurate version of events now that it is clear that the Select Committee on Home Affairs was misled earlier today over the extent of the collusion between the Mayor of London

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Would the hon. Member care to rephrase his words?

Martin Salter: I would, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you give us guidance as to how the House can establish an accurate version of events now that it is clear that there was some discussion between the Mayor of London and the Leader of the Opposition with regard to the arrest of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)?

Madam Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair, but the matter is now on the record and I hope, therefore, that the people responsible will respond to the hon. Member.

Child Protection

Tim Loughton: I beg to move,
	That this House is alarmed that nine years after the tragic death of Victoria Climbi the level of child abuse and deaths at the hands of parents and carers remains unacceptably high; notes that many of the shortcomings of child protection services raised in reports on the death of Baby P and other high profile cases recently echo concerns raised in Lord Laming's enquiry from which lessons have still not been learned despite the best endeavours of social workers and other professionals working in increasingly difficult and demoralising circumstances; calls on the Government urgently to restore confidence in the system by ensuring that all serious case reviews are published in full, appropriately anonymised and redacted where that would not compromise the welfare of the child and siblings so that all agencies can learn from mistakes made; urges further moves to increase transparency and accountability by requiring all local safeguarding children's boards to be independently chaired as recently recommended by the Conservative Party, and that the OFSTED inspection system should be overhauled to be fit for purpose in the inspection of children's services departments; and calls on the Government to free up social workers and other professionals to maximise the time available to spend with vulnerable families by scrapping the highly prescriptive template for the Integrated Children's System and other cumbersome data systems which have engendered a 'tick box' assessment approach which is undermining child protection.
	I am pleased to move the motion [Interruption.] Despite the evacuation of the Chamber, this subject is important to all hon. Members and it is also topical [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We are just commencing this debate, so would hon. Members who do not wish to stay please leave as quickly and as quietly as possible and would those who remain be aware of the level of their conversations, so that hon. Members who wish to contribute to this debate may hear what is being said?

Tim Loughton: I am grateful for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, this topical subject requires urgent attention, but yet again, it is not Government time being given over to debating children's issues, but Opposition timethat has been the case ever since the Government created the post of a children's Minister.
	Despite a constant stream of well-intentioned legislation on child protection and child-related issues, and despite the best endeavours of many hard-working and dedicated professionals, the child protection system is just not working. Last November's Ofsted report suggested that up to four children a week in England die from abuse or neglectand two thirds of those killed or hurt were babies under a year old. That includes cases where parents or carers were not directly culpable for causing death, but the figure is still substantially more than the one to two deaths a week assumed previously by children's charities, and it is an alarming revelation almost nine years after the tragic death of Victoria Climbi, which has become synonymous with the cancer of child cruelty. From her death came the comprehensive report by the highly respected Herbert Laming, who is undertaking a follow-up review in the light of the baby P case.
	Subsequently we have had the Children Act 2004, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, the Children and Young Persons Act 2008, the integrated children's system, the child assessment framework and, most recently, ContactPoint. We have local safeguarding children boards, directors of children's services departments and so on. It is not the quantity of legislation that is at fault, but the quality, content and direction. Indeed, there is now a growing body of opinion that many of the structural changes that we have seen over the yearsespecially the constant upheaval and drain on resources and morale that they have brought about over the last five or more yearsare actually undermining the effectiveness of the child protection system.
	Following the trial of those responsible for the death of baby P in November, the spotlight again fell on Haringey children's services department, and particularly its director. When challenged about the findings in that awful caseand when elected members had fled the sceneSharon Shoesmith responded that as far as she was concerned, her social workers had done their jobs properly, all the procedures had been followed and she would not be resigning. By the way, a 17-month-old boy had died in horrific circumstances, despite being on the council's at-risk register and having had contact with various professionals on at least 60 occasions.
	Absurdly, therefore, we are expected to accept that as long as the right pages in the rule book were followed and the requisite number of boxes were ticked, the system was working properly. Child protection has undoubtedly become a big enterprise, and many more people now have an interest in it than, say, 10 years ago, which is quite right. But are we in danger of having created a sophisticated system that has inadvertently put the protection of that system ahead of the protection of the vulnerable children whom the system is surely there to protect and prioritise?

Joan Humble: The hon. Gentleman is rightly drawing attention to some horrific cases in which children died in dreadful circumstances. However, he is not drawing attention to the good work that so many social workers do, and how many children they save. When I meet social workers in Blackpoolespecially those who work with childrenthey are proud of the work that they do. They work hard to protect the children the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

Tim Loughton: I entirely agree with the hon. Lady, which is why I started my second paragraph by commending the great efforts of the social work professionals. That is also why this party set up a commission on social workers two years ago, which reported again today. And that is why I shall make some further comments commending the activities of social workers later in my speech, if the hon. Lady will be patient.
	When the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) launched the Laming report on 28 January 2003, he told the House:
	We cannot undo the wrongs done to Victoria Climbi. We can, though, seek to put right for others what so fundamentally failed for her.[ Official Report, 28 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 739.]
	A key action point from that statement was the setting up of children's trustsa substantial structural innovation. But have they really turned out to be the universal panacea that we were promised? If so, why were they panned in a recent Audit Commission report in which the chief executive, Steve Bundred, said that improvements to children's services have happened in spite of the trusts, rather than because of them? He said:
	There's no evidence that the trusts have resulted in any improved outcomes for children.
	Again, apparently well-intentioned structural changes have turned out to be bureaucratic nightmares at best, and at worst seriously counter-productive to the business of protecting vulnerable children.
	Over the weekend I reread the Laming report. Its findings were not exceptional. Its 108 recommendations were not insurmountable. It said:
	The extent of the failure to protect Victoria was lamentable. Tragically, it required nothing more than basic good practice being put into operation. This never happened.
	It claimed that
	scarce resources were not being put to good use. Bad practice can be expensive.
	It concluded:
	The single most important change in the future must be the drawing of a clear line of accountability, from top to bottom, without doubt or ambiguity about who is responsible at every level for the well-being of vulnerable children. Time and again it was dispiriting to listen to the 'buck passing' from those who attempted to justify their positions.
	I think that we would all endorse those comments.
	Lord Laming ended by saying:
	I am convinced that the answer lies in doing relatively straightforward things well.
	But six years on, relatively straightforward things were still not being done well in Haringey. The fundamental message from Laming was that there should be clear lines of accountability. That is why directors of children's services departments were created, but in Haringey no one stepped up to the plate voluntarily to take responsibility.
	The joint area review produced before Christmas contained depressing echoes of the original Climbi inquiry, as set out in the letter from the Secretary of State dated 1 December. It mentioned
	significant weaknesses in safeguarding and child protection procedures and practice in Haringey...inadequate leadership and management of safeguarding by the local authority and partner agencies...poor gathering, recording and sharing of information...a failure to identify those children and young people at immediate risk of harm...poor child protection plans...agencies generally working in isolation from one another and without any effective co-ordination and a failure to consult with children in some cases.
	Those are all familiar failings that we had heard before in the case of Victoria Climbi.
	In many respects, the circumstances surrounding baby P are worse than those of the Victoria Climbi case. Whereas the abuse of Victoria Climbi went on primarily under the radar of local services much of the time, baby P was the subject of at least 60 contacts with professionals and was firmly on their radar.
	Of course the tragedies of Haringey are not unique. This year started with the news that in Doncaster no fewer than seven children have been the subject of serious case reviews over the past four years. Five of them were less than 16 months old, including Amy Howson and Alfie Goddard, whose cases have been brought to court.

Meg Munn: I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken an interest in this issue for some time, but when we cite such figures, it is important to look at the detail. Of those seven children, three were found to have died for reasons not related to abuse. Although local authorities may have serious case reviews when children die, those deaths are not always directly attributable to failures in care by social workers or other professionals.

Tim Loughton: The hon. Lady is right; we have debated these issues on many occasions. In some of the Doncaster cases, the deaths were the result of dysfunctional families, with parents with drug and alcohol addiction who should have been the subject of much closer scrutiny by the children's services department.

Barry Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and we are all horrified by the baby P case, and any case in which a child is killed. I know that his job tonight is to blame the Government, but if he looks at Scandinaviawhich my Committee has visited to look at their systems, which I admit are better than ours in many wayshe will see that the levels of child murder are about the same. He should bear that in mind, instead of making this a party political issue that divides us across the House.

Tim Loughton: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman severely underestimates the purpose of this debate. This is not a partisan issue. This is an urgent issue that affects all hon. Members, and it is about the most vulnerable members of our society. We set up our commission on social workers dealing with child protection in that vein, to try to produce solutions to deal with a failing child protection system.
	We have instigated this debatethe Government did not do sobecause we wanted to draw attention to the continuing problems and allow the House to debate them. So far it has been denied that opportunity. We could have a whole debate on the example of Scandinavia. As the hon. Gentleman knows, members of the shadow children's team and I have visited Denmark and Finland in recent years to look at the child protection systems there. There is a high degree of alcoholism in Denmark, especially among parents from Greenland, and that demands the sort of interventions that should perhaps have happened in Doncaster, but did not.

John Hemming: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that, notwithstanding a letter sent by the Secretary of State to the hon. Gentleman, to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) earlier today, the Government's promise to provide a list, or at least a number broken down by local authority, of serious case reviews following the death of a child since 2003 has not been honoured

Edward Balls: What?

John Hemming: No, it has not. I am sorry, I mean that the Department has not provided that information and the Secretary of State will have to explain why. Does the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) share my concern that that has not happened?

Tim Loughton: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I shall talk about serious case reviews shortly. I noticed that my office got an urgent call from the Secretary of State's office to rush out that answer, which I think the hon. Gentleman was expecting.
	In Doncaster, there were again chilling echoes of what happened in Haringey and elsewhere. The published executive summaries of the serious case reviews in Doncaster spoke of missed opportunitiesand in any case, in November Ofsted found that 41 per cent. of those serious case reviews were inadequate. Children met their deaths as a result not of one-off violent incidents but of systematic violence. The case of child A involved grossly inadequate responses by social services. Social work departments were in chaos, suffering from unmanageable workloads and not engaging remotely satisfactorily with vulnerable families. Health services had failed to take proper precautions and liaise with other agenciesa fundamental weakness identified in the case of Victoria Climbi and repeatedly since. Similar common themes have come out in other high-profile cases in Birmingham and Huddersfield that have hit the headlinesand, I fear, will come out in many other cases elsewhere that are still to work their way through the system.
	We will never prevent all such tragedies in the future. Evil human beings will continue to commit unimaginably evil acts, even against their own kin. However, it is the job of child protection services to reduce the opportunities, to be vigilant concerning the likely candidates, and to intervene in a timely and appropriate manner whenever possible. So how on earth is this still happening, and what must take place to reduce such tragedies in the future? On one level, of course, we are being denied the vital opportunity to find out, to learn from the lessons and to implement the solutions, because we rarely get to see the full serious case reviews of such tragedies. Worse than that, Ofsted reports have thrown significant doubt on the integrity, thoroughness and value of many of the unpublished reviews. Even executive summaries are not necessarily published in full, let alone an accurate picture of the detailed underlying review.
	In the case of baby P, the Secretary of State said that he had taken advice from the Information Commissioner that advised against the publication of the serious case review. That turned out to be news to the Information Commissioner. Instead, my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State and three other privileged hon. Members were allowed a furtive sight of the report behind locked doors, without pen and paper, and were sworn to secrecy. As David Hencke put it in  The Guardian,
	how could we know that these summaries are perfectexcept to rely on
	the Secretary of State's
	wordsand that even if all reports under
	the Secretary of State
	are perfect, how can we be sure that under a future children's secretary they won't lapse into previous bad ways...The public and the profession deserve better than this. It is no wonder that similar cases to Baby P happen with monotonous regularity. It also seems to make a mockery of Lord Laming's good work if the professionals, let alone the public, do not get unfettered access to these reports. The fact that reports could be published could sharpen up future case reviews.

Edward Balls: May I correct a mistake made by the hon. Gentleman? At no time have I ever claimed that I asked the advice of the Information Commissioner in the case of baby P. In a letter of 18 November to the shadow spokesmen, I quoted a decision that the Information Commissioner had taken on a different case in 2006, in which he decided that it would be wrong to release that report at that time. I quoted that in support of the decision that I was making not to publish the information in this case. I have never made such a claim. I did not seek the advice of the Information Commissioner in this case. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that statement, because he knows it not to be true.

Tim Loughton: If anything I said is not true, I withdraw it. However, I distinctly remember the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box praying in aid the name of the Information Commissioner, with whom he now says he had not checked beforehand. Will he clarify what he said?

Edward Balls: In the letter of 18 November, which was sent before I made the statement to the House, I said:
	You may be aware that the Information Commissioner took a decision on a request to make available a Serious Case Review in 2006.
	I said:
	This risk was one of the considerations taken into account by him in that case. He decided to uphold the decision of a local authority to refuse to release the report.
	Then, in the House, I referred to the previous decision taken by the Information Commissioner, which is clearly documented in the letter that I sent to the shadow spokesman and the Liberal Democrat spokesman. At no point have I misled the House, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the allegation about my seeking the advice of the Information Commissioner when I did not. It was my decision not to release the serious case review, not the Information Commissioner's, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that statement.

Tim Loughton: The Secretary of State is very defensive. If this is such a big issue with him, why did he not seek the advice of the Information Commissioner in this case before his name was prayed in aid? We can check what it says in  Hansard. If it would please the Secretary of State and enable us to get on with the debate, I will certainly withdraw the comment. However, Opposition Members remember him praying the Information Commissioner's name in aid as an excuse for why the serious case reviews could not be published.
	Perhaps I could move on.

Edward Balls: rose

Tim Loughton: I have given way twice, which I think is generous. The Secretary of State will have ample opportunity to respond shortly.
	We agree with David Hencke of  The Guardian. The Secretary of State put it succinctly in his letter of 18 November to my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State when he said that:
	the purpose of a Serious Case Review is to learn the lessons from what happened....The most effective and efficient way of learning lessons from these tragedies is to provide an environment in which professionals can freely discuss the circumstances of a case as openly as possible.
	How can we learn the lessons when the reviews are not published in full and there are serious question marks over the accuracy and veracity of what they investigate and recommend? The need is not only for political and public scrutiny: how can other local authorities share best practice and learn from inadequate practice when they cannot see the reviews in full? It is nonsense.

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I want to make some progress, because many other hon. Members want to contribute.

Meg Munn: rose

Tim Loughton: The hon. Lady would be denying her own colleagues, of whom there are many, the opportunity to speak.

Edward Balls: rose

Tim Loughton: I will let the Secretary of State respond in his speech when I have finished. He has had two opportunities to clarify; he can have a third in his own time.
	For the reasons that I have given, the Conservative party believes that serious case reviews should, as a matter of course, be published in full, duly anonymised and appropriately but not excessively redacted, unless it would compromise the welfare of the child or his or her siblings. I can report that the cabinet member for children's services in Birmingham has undertaken in principle that the serious case review of the Kyra Ishaq case, and subsequent reviews, will be published in full subject to the above criteria. I hope that the Secretary of State will take note and encourage other authorities to do the same.

Edward Balls: rose

Tim Loughton: I will willingly give way if the right hon. Gentleman will give that guarantee and undertaking to the House now.

Edward Balls: I shall guarantee to take very seriously the advice of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the deputy Children's Commissioner, both of whom say that the publication of full serious case reviews would put children at risk. The fact is that the hon. Gentleman is disagreeing with that advice. It is important to put on the record the fact that he is taking a different view from that of the NSPCC on this matter.

Tim Loughton: It is also on the record that the NSPCC has sent round an e-mail clarifying its position, because it did not take kindly to being cited in the amendment. The Secretary of State can claim in aid only two opinions, one of which has been called into doubt by a subsequent e-mail.
	Conservative councils have also introduced an urgent initiative to safeguard the integrity of the important local safeguarding children boards, another important product of Lord Laming's inquiry. LSCBs are there to bring together all the local agencies, co-ordinating safeguarding action and, where necessary, commissioning reviews. The independence of the boards is essential, and that independence was called into question in the case of Haringey [ Interruption. ] The Government Whip is getting very excited. Does he want to intervene? I would be happy to hear his words of wisdom if he has anything sensible to add to the debate. He does not.
	The independence of the boards is essential, and that independence was called into question in the case of Haringey. Boards and the serious case reviews that they commission must pull no punches, and be openly critical of the commissioning authority paying the bills where necessary. After consultation with Conservative cabinet members for children's services running many authorities throughout the country, I find that those authorities either have already, or are in the process of, installing independent chairmen of LSCBs rather than the directors of children's services, as was the case in Haringey. We put that into effect urgently soon after the news about baby P. I am sure that Lord Laming will recommend the same thing in his review, so why has the Secretary of State not instructed Labour-run authorities to make the same changes now without delay, to safeguard those reports?
	Those issues are important, but the fundamental key to the effective working of children's services departments must be the professionals who work at the sharp end. In particular, we need properly resourced, appropriately trained and suitably motivated social workers who are able to get on with their jobs and spend quality face-to-face time with vulnerable children and families. They should not be shackled to computers, paperwork, rigid procedures and bureaucracy. Without that, any amount of structural changenew boards, and shiny new positions for shiny new managerswill amount to nothing at the sharp end, where it matters.

John Gummer: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be much easier for these devoted social workers to work if they knew that, when some disaster took place, the head of the department involved would resign, automatically and without exception, because it was his or her responsibility? Do we not have to recover that kind of attitude if we are to revive the real responsibility that should obtain in all such departments?

Tim Loughton: My right hon. Friend raises a very good point. It was a clear tenet of the Laming report that the buck should stop somewhere. The shortcoming of the Victoria Climbi case and so many others was that nobody stepped up to the plate and took responsibility. As a result, there were no clear lines of accountability. Clearly, that is what needs to happen but, as I am afraid we saw in Haringey, it still has not happened.
	That is why in October 2007 we published No More Blame GameThe Future for Children's Social Workers, which was the result of an impressive commission of professionals from a wide range of areas of child protection. Lord Laming and Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss were our patrons, and the findings of the commission have turned out to be prescient in many respects. Some of its proposals have been adopted by Ministers, although many were rejected during the scrutiny of the Children and Young Persons Bill last year. Since then, however, the position has undoubtedly deteriorated.
	We recently carried out a comprehensive survey of children's services departments. Since 2005, the vacancy rates for children's social workers has risen from 11 per cent. to over 14.6 per cent. In 10 boroughs, the vacancy rate is over 30 per cent. In Haringey itself, it is now 34 per cent. and at least 18 authorities have vacancy rates of over 20 per cent.
	The phenomenon is not limited to inner-city boroughs, as leafy shires are being affected too. Clearly, we need to do much more to retain experienced social workers, who are increasingly disillusioned, and to recruit more new people into social work. The social worker degree course is a welcome aid to raising standards, but initial reports suggest that a third of graduates do not go on to a job in social work, and that a further third leave employment after only a year.
	Above all, effective social work with vulnerable families involves establishing an empathetic relationship and continuity in personnel. It is a false economy to cover such high vacancy rates with transient and costly agency staff. Last week's survey by Unison found that child protection services are a
	ticking time bomb that could explode at any minute. There are not enough staff, caseloads are too big and social workers are spending 80 per cent. of their time on paperwork. That is a lethal combination that will leave children exposed...Without decisive action it is only a matter of time before there is another tragedy.

Graham Stuart: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Meg Munn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), and then to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn).

Graham Stuart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have here a copy of  Hansard from 20 November 2008. The Secretary of State said:
	I endeavoured to see whether I was able to release the full, confidential serious case review to parliamentarians, but the clear professional advice given to me was that that would be the wrong thing to do, given the ruling of the Information Commissioner.
	Later in the debate, he said that he had looked very hard at whether he could release the full case review.
	Alongside the Information Commissioner's view, the clear advice that I received was that, if we were to set such a precedent, it would make it much harder in future.[ Official Report, 20 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 377-380.]
	The Secretary of State gave every impression in the House that the Information Commissioner in that case had given his view. He set out that evening

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that interventions must be brief. I think that he has made his point.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I shall give the Secretary of State the opportunity to clarify the matter in his response.

Edward Balls: rose

Tim Loughton: The right hon. Gentleman must stop chafing at the bit, as I am coming to the end of my speech and want to give other hon. Members a chance to participate. Before that, however, I shall give wayand for the last timeto the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley.

Meg Munn: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kindness, but I am extremely concerned when he throws around words such as bureaucracy and paperwork as if they are not important. Of course social workers have to spend time with families, but recording the information that they gain from that contact is enormously important, and even more so when there are staffing difficulties. Without that accurate recordof a child's weight or behaviour, for exampleit is not possible to reflect over time. Social workers can go to court and present evidence only on that basis, so the hon. Gentleman should be a little careful about how he talks about paperwork.

Tim Loughton: The hon. Lady was a social worker in a former existence and knows much of these matters, but I bet my bottom dollar that she did not spend up to 80 per cent. of her time when she was in practice shackled to the assessment procedures, filling in forms or working on the computer. Instead, I bet that she was out in the field sharing face-to-face time with her clients. If not, there was certainly something wrong with the system.
	Separately, the General Social Care Council has reported that social workers are spending at least 60 to 70 per cent. of their time on administrative work as opposed to client contact. Much of this time is spent filling in forms to ensure accountability rather than working with the family. The London borough of Sutton reported that, 20 years ago, only 30 per cent. of a social worker's time was spent on paperwork. Again, more time is being spent on protecting the system than protecting the clients.
	Not surprisingly, increased work loads caused by rising demand, together with staff vacancies, have increased stress levels in the social work force. Indeed, the magazine  Community Care, a key publication for those working in social care, recently commented on the difficulty of finding a social worker who
	is not so stressed that they leave to be replaced by agency staff.
	Chief among the bureaucratic obstacle course is the integrated children's service.

Anthony Steen: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Tim Loughton: I will take my hon. Friend's intervention as the last one from this side of the House, just as I took the intervention from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley as the final one from that side.

Anthony Steen: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. First, the whole House must recognise that social workers have a tremendously stressful and difficult job. Many are very young, and do not have the experience that the older social worker has. We should pay tribute to the work that they do, as it is not recognised. The status of social workers also needs to be given greater recognition.
	Social workers have tremendous problems dealing with our own children in our own constituencies, but is my hon. Friend aware that there is an increasing problem with Roma children? In London alone, 1,017 children from the Roma community have been found on the streets, and that has caused enormous problems for social services. Westminster and Haringey have rejected police requests for care because they are not able to accommodate

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Again, the length of interventions is increasing as the time is going on.

Tim Loughton: I am trying to make progress, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friend makes a very good point about a subject in which he has a good deal of expertise. That is yet another challenge for already hard-pressed social workers, who already have excessive case loads looking after people who live in their areas.
	I was talking about integrated children's services. The common assessment framework for the assessment of children in need and their families was introduced in 2000, and the core format allowed information to be presented in a helpful and logical sequence, quickly identifying the key issues of concern. However, the ICS recording system, which has been rolled out in the last two years, resulted from a drive for a nationally compliant template and was much more prescriptive. A number of concerns were raised during the consultancy process, many of which were not resolved before ICS was introduced.
	In 2007, a major evaluation of ICS concluded that the system, based on a series of tick-box forms, was not tailored to individual children. That important study by Margaret Bell said that it failed to ask important questions of some children while asking others that were irrelevant, resulting in bland analyses. The study said:
	The process was felt to diminish analysis and risk assessment. There were particular concerns about risk because it was unclear where the information would be located.
	Moreover, there were
	serious reservations about the design and use of ICS in its present form and the authors believe that the ICS has yet to demonstrate the degree to which and how it is fit for purpose.
	Once again, however, the full report was never published by the Government. If one is able to find the executive summary, one can see that its conclusions have been confirmed by concerns expressed to our commission on social workers. Social workers have said the template is too detailed and requires so much standard information that workers have to focus on completing the document rather than the assessment.
	The chairman of the London child protection co-ordinators has warned:
	The forms as they stand are extremely long and their format cannot be considered to be accessible or friendly to parents and children, for whom the child protection process is stressful. Using these forms as a social work report to a Child Protection conference will alienate parents further and will, we fear, prevent their participation in what is often their only chance to meet together with all of the professionals involved with their children.
	ICS forms were supposed to help partners of social work, but the direct opposite is the case. The chairman went on to say that some boroughs had estimated that the increased demands of the system had added 12 to 20 per cent. to the amount of time spent on the issue by social workers. David Wastell, professor in information systems at the university of Nottingham, warned that the ICS was unfit for purpose because it was developed by central Government with little input from front-line social practitioners.
	One need only look at the blogs, including a blog by Bury social workers, to see the problems that people in the field, at the sharp end, deal with day in, day out. One such social worker said:
	I am...a Social Worker in Bury...and as a team we are collectively struggling with the new ICS System along with managing a substantial case load. 1) It is very time consuming turning us into paper pushers rather than hands on Social Workers! 2) Very confusing for Service Usersif as professionals we struggle with the forms how are families expected to understand the concept behind them. 3) Very prescriptive in the information they required not giving the opportunity for exploring risk, analysis or indeed the Child's views!
	Another said:
	as a practitioner with over 16 years' experience, I feel they are the biggest downfall in terms of direct work with children and families, which of course we cannot do anymore because we're all sitting behind desks...Is anyone listening to the experiences of front line social workers using these forms? Where was the consultation prior to their implementation? We find them impossibly time consuming, families don't understand them so are fearful and made to feel inadequate and stupid.
	The system is not working.

Lynne Featherstone: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I ask the hon. Lady to bear with me. The commission on social workers strongly recommends that the highly prescriptive ICS template be abolished in favour of a much more streamlined, user-friendly system that allows social workers more empathetic face-time with their clients. Some authorities, such as Kensington and Chelsea, have been developing their own systems at their own expense, which are much more user-friendly. Others should surely be allowed to follow suit without the threat of money from the Department for Children, Schools and Families being held back, as it is if they do not follow the Department's highly prescriptive route.
	The Government's obsession with bureaucracy and databases is, of course, set to escalate with ContactPoint, which started to go live just last week. It has cost 244 million so far, and the estimated ongoing running cost is at least 41 million per annum. It is a system of unproven value, and there are no guarantees about security of access. It could turn out to be another measure that is counter-productive to genuine child protection, as resources will be spread thinly over 11 million children, rather than being focused on genuinely vulnerable children, which is what we have advocated all along.

Hilary Armstrong: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I will not.
	It is also clear that the database is to be used for many more purposes than the child protection criteria originally cited, including police investigations, and that many more people will have access to it. The House of Commons Library has estimated that the money spent on ContactPoint so far could have been used to employ 7,575 additional social workersequivalent to 50 in every local authority. The money to be spent on the system between now and 2012 could pay for an additional social worker every four hours.
	The Secretary of State will know that at a briefing that he gave to directors of children's services shortly after the baby P case hit the headlines, a suggestion from one director that ContactPoint should be scrapped and the money instead used to reduce the case load of social workers was greeted with widespread cheering, yet the Government are ploughing ahead with this latest data disaster waiting to happen. ContactPoint is handled by the same firm that managed to lose the details of the entire prison population, and the Government refused to publish in full the security review carried out by Deloitte a year ago, which warned that
	there will always be a risk of data security incidents occurring.
	If that was not bad enough, the special security arrangements that apparently involve the children of hon. Members being subject to shielding safeguards last week resulted in headlines that referred to a Them and us child register.

Hilary Armstrong: I really am shocked to hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He clearly has not investigated the database effectively. He and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) have strongly argued that there needs to be a level of knowledge across the Departments and agencies working with children, so that they can intervene early with the most vulnerable. Without a database such as ContactPoint, it will be impossible to do that. He cannot make both arguments and expect us to think that he is being logical. If he is to be logical, he has to be much more

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Tim Loughton: The answer to child protection problems in this country is not another expensive computer system that has not proved that it can do what the right hon. Lady thinks that it can do.

Fiona Mactaggart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I have not even finished responding to the previous intervention.
	What will protect children in this country is properly resourced and motivated professionals working at the sharp end, and talking to other well-resourced and motivated professionals to deal together with a problem. They need time to spend at the sharp end, not time shackled to a computer system, constantly inputting data; we do not know whether that will work. I trust professionals; the right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong) trusts spending a lot of money on unproven computer systems. That is what divides us in this case.
	That is why, having opposed the original provisions in the Children Bill 2004, the Conservative party last year announced that we would scrap ContactPoint and focus instead on a streamlined signposting central database, which would include genuinely vulnerable childrena view wholeheartedly endorsed by the commission on social workers.  [Interruption.] We are talking about a database of genuinely vulnerable children, not all the 11 million children in this country. That is the difference. Ours would concentrate on vulnerable children.  [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask that the debate be conducted in the proper manner; comments should not be made across the Chamber.

Tim Loughton: That shows that Labour Members yet again think that setting up, and ploughing money into, a computer system is the universal panacea and will solve the problem. That is not what will solve the problem.

Lynne Featherstone: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton: I will make some progress so that I can finish. I am grateful for the hard work and dedication of the commission on social workers, whose members were so willing to reconvene to update our original report and to make further recommendations in light of the deteriorating climate, as highlighted by the baby P case and other high-profile cases. Today we are making further recommendations, and I would very much like the Secretary of State to respond to them.
	First, and foremost among all the points made to us by our witnesses, an end is required to widespread disruptive structural changes. As I have said, we need to scrap the child databases that take away so much of the time that social workers can spend dealing with vulnerable families, face to face. We also need a national recruitment campaign that will bring in new, properly trained and properly motivated social workers. It should be a high-impact advertising campaign. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) said, we need to make sure that experienced social workers stay in place and do not move into early retirement because they are so disillusioned by what is going on.
	We need a care first programme, modelled on the teach first programme, in which highly trained social workers would go into particularly challenging circumstances. We need social workers to have a mixed case load, in which they have supportive and therapeutic work, alongside more serious cases. We need practice training for new social workers, and we need on-the-job training for directors of children's services departments; too often, they are cosseted away in offices and do not go out in the field with social workers.
	We need to overhaul the whole process of inspections. We need to make sure that we have a system that is fit for purpose, and that ensures that we are inspecting the right things. It is absurd that there is not a senior social worker on the board of Ofsted. It is absurd that when Ofsted inspections happen in children's services departments, the inspectors do not go out with social workers on a case; an Ofsted inspector carrying out a school inspection would sit at the back of a class. We need to ensure much better interagency communication, which should include the Ofsted inspection. The Ofsted inspection should inspect how well the different agencies work together, and should note which do not.
	I have concentrated on the crucial role of social workersreal, human social workers, practitioners out in the field with experience, of whom we need many more. To my mind, they are better value than the expensive, unproven computer system by which Labour Members seem to set so much store, despite the fact that the Government's track record on IT systems over the past 12 years has not exactly been covered in glory. There are many other aspects of child protection that other hon. Members will wish to flag up, not least concerning health professionals. A new study by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), the shadow Secretary of State for Health, will show how many of the original Laming recommendations are still not being carried out in practice. Interagency working with the police still leaves a lot to be desired, too.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) will, when she winds up, make reference to proposals that we have already announced to expand the health visitor system. Health visitors will intensively visit new parents in those crucial first few weeks, in a system based on the Dutch Kraamzorg model. She will also mention the benefits of other early intervention practices. I want to leave it to others to talk about the importance of extended family members, and particularly about the role of grandparents in helping to counter child abuse. I have not had time to return to the Government's continued refusal to take decisive action on private fostering, which has direct links with the added risk of child abuse.
	The Conservative party has called the debate in the interests of continuing to highlight the serious problems and inadequacies in the way that we protect our most vulnerable children and families, and of making further substantial and constructive proposals to find the solutions that I am sure all of us in all parts of the House urgently want to see. I hope that when he has cleared up the muddle about his earlier references to the Information Commissioner, the Secretary of State will engage positively with some of the constructive proposals that we have made.

Edward Balls: I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from House to the end of the Question and add:
	agrees that safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility; recognises that keeping children safe is a top priority for this Government, commends action taken by the Government following the tragic death of Baby P, to keep children safe in Haringey; welcomes the requirement that all local safeguarding children's boards responsible for serious case reviews judged inadequate by Ofsted convene an independently chaired panel to reconsider the review and report to the Secretary of State; agrees with the Deputy Children's Commissioner and the NSPCC that while comprehensive executive summaries should be published full serious case reviews should remain confidential; affirms its conviction that the Every Child Matters reforms are soundly based and essential in driving change for children; welcomes evidence in the joint chief inspectors' third report on safeguarding children of improvements since 2005 in children's services and outcomes for children and young people; commends the development by the inspectorates of new local area assessment and inspection arrangements; welcomes the commissioning of Lord Laming to report on progress being made across the country in implementing effective arrangements for safeguarding children; agrees with his recommendation that serious case review panels should be chaired by people independent of the reporting agencies; commends the creation of a Social Work Taskforce to review frontline social work, including the role and development of the Integrated Children's System in support of its work; and further commends the recent announcement of the first stage of delivery of ContactPoint, which experts agree is vital to keep children safe.
	I shall turn to the Opposition motion shortly and reply to the points made by the shadow spokesperson in the opening speech.
	It is the first duty of Governmentindeed, it is our shared dutyto do everything we can to keep our children and young people safe and protected from harm. There is no greater responsibility on us as Ministers and Members of the House, so it is right that we ask ourselves tonight whether there is more that we can all do to keep children safe from harm. That is why I welcome the debate on this most important issue.
	Although I was disappointed that the shadow Secretary of State chose not to open the debate, I start, notwithstanding the speech that we have just heard and the fact that we disagree on some points, by noting that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has made some important contributions on these issues in recent years.
	The number of child deaths has fallen in recent years, and sharply so for the youngest children, but any abuse or non-accidental death is wrong. I know that many hon. Members will have reacted to the tragic case of baby P, as I did, with incomprehension. How could adults perpetrate such terrible acts of evil against a little boy? When professionals became aware of the risks to the child, why did they not act sooner to protect him from harm? Such a tragic and appalling case must rightly raise wider questions of public concern about the safety of vulnerable children around the country. Also, as the hon. Gentleman said, when some local authorities are judged inadequate in their safeguarding of children, it is rightly a matter of grave public concern.
	It is my judgment that following the death of Victoria Climbi and the Laming inquiry, we have put in place a strong framework for tackling child abuse. It is our expectation that social workers, GPs, nurses and police officers see the world from the child's perspective and put the child's safety first. But we also know, as we have seen in recent weeks and months, that there is still a long way to go until we have the best possible child protection arrangements in every part of the country.
	That is why, as we have heard in the debate, we have taken a number of actions in recent months to improve further child protection, which include asking Lord Laming to provide a further report on progress in implementing the reforms that were introduced after the Climbi inquiry, with proposals for further improvement to accelerate improvement across the country. We have demanded that local authorities take action in response to any serious case review that has been judged to be inadequate. We have set up a new social work taskforce, to be chaired by the chief executive of Camden council, Moira Gibb, to reform social work training and practice, and we have begun, as we heard, the roll-out of ContactPoint with the widespread support of professionals and practitioners alike. All these reforms are vital to keep children safe and, despite the comments that we have heard, it is still my genuine and fervent hope that we can build a cross-party consensus on the matter in the House and in the country. That is the best way to keep children safe.

John Hemming: The Secretary of State stated that the number of deaths from child abuse and neglect had fallen sharply in recent years. On what basis does he justify that statement, and how would he justify it in the light of the Department's continued refusal to provide figures in an auditable form as on serious case reviews following the death of a child?

Edward Balls: The answer is that the UN figures show that over the past 15 years there has been a 40 per cent. fall in child deaths for under-fives. There has also been a small fall in the number of deaths of children aged 0 to 17. But that is not good enough. We need to do better. Every death that is non-accidental is not good enough. That is why we need to make further progress.

John Hemming: What are those figures, which we could then audit?

Edward Balls: I am happy to quote the figures from the Office for National Statistics, which show that in 2003 the overall number of deaths of children aged 0 to 17 was 4,990. In 2007 it was lower4,854. The UN figures show that over the period 1995 to 2006 there has been a 30 per cent. fall in child deaths among under-fives. So I have set out the figures clearly.

David Kidney: I meet and listen to many children in care and people who have been in care, and they would remind the House that there are some great performances by social workers and local authorities around the country, but some very poor performances too, some of which we have heard about. They would want us to be intolerant of those poor performers. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that there is the political will and the law to enable tougher earlier intervention on local authorities that are not doing well enough?

Edward Balls: There is the political will, as I believe we showed in the case of Haringey. That was an exceptional case in terms of the gravity of the failure, as was made clear by the Ofsted and wider inspectors, but there have been problems in Doncaster, Surrey, West Sussex, Birmingham and Wokingham. In all those cases we are currently taking action to intervene. There is the political will, and we will act because our priority is to keep children safe. Although the figures have come down, it is still not good enough and we need to do more.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Secretary of State for Justice produced a report on care, which the right hon. Gentleman's officials may or may not have read. One of the key issues raised by his right hon. Friend is that in 10 successive Acts the same reassurance, by and large, has been given. This is not a direct criticism of the Government. Here we legislate and say what should happen, but perhaps the guiltiest parties in all this are the many local authorities throughout the country which, the report found, do not implement what has gone through the House and leave social workers trapped between a system that does not want to put children into care because of the financial cost, and blame from us when they do not do so. Is it not time that the Secretary of State sorted the problem out? Councils that fail must be brought to account, and quickly.

Edward Balls: The right hon. Gentleman is right. It is important that councils are called to account. This is not a party political matter. As he knows, those are Conservative and Labour councils around the country. More than 100 of the 150 areas that were inspected by Ofsted in the past year were judged good or very good, but not all were, and where there is inadequacy, we will intervene because that is the right thing to do.

Tim Loughton: Before the Secretary of State moves away from the UN table that he quoted, will he make it clear to the House that what he quoted is a table of all child deaths, which includes traffic accidents, child cancer deaths and meningitis deaths, of which only a small proportion relate to children being killed at the hands of their parents or carers, for which figure he cannot show progress and for which he should be citing his own Ofsted report last year, which said that there had been up to four deaths a week? Is that not the case? If so, he is using figures to create a very false image to the House.

Edward Balls: I think I made it clear that UN figures are for child deaths, and they have fallen by 30 per cent. We need to make sure that we protect children from all kinds of death where there is a non-accidental injury. That matters whether we are dealing with safety in the home, transport deaths or child deaths. I also said that any child death that happens because of abuse or injury by a parent or carer is wrong. That is why we are debating these matters.

Bob Spink: May I take the right hon. Gentleman back to the central issue of local authority performance? I first fell out with my local, Conservative councillors over their failure on child protection. Now an Ofsted report has found that Essex county council child protection is inadequate. It has been served with a formal improvement notice and given 12 months to get its act together. Does he think that Tory Front Benchers would have more credibility tonight if they had come to the House, apologised for that and said what they were doing to clean up their own councils' actsparticularly the one in Essex?

Edward Balls: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point, but as I said this is not a party political matter. The councils in Haringey and Doncaster were Labour, but those in Essex, Sussex, Surrey and Wokingham were Conservative. In the case of Surrey, I think that I am right in saying that last summer the Minister for Children, Young People and Families wrote to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham offering a briefing on the serious matter involved. If the hon. Gentleman wants to take that up at any point, he is welcome to. However, this is not a party political matter, but one that should concern all Members and councils of all political colours. That is why I said that I did not want to play party politics with it, despite provocation. I want to get to a consensus on the way forward, and that is what I am determined to do.

Meg Munn: May I return to the point made by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith)? We have to be careful when talking about whether there is a choice between leaving a child at home and not bringing them into care because of issues of cost. Such judgments are extremely complex. Taking a child away from their family, even when the family is not perfect, has emotional implications. Social workers weigh up trying to improve a child's situation at home with their natural family and the implications for children who live with other families. Even for very small children, those implications can have lifelong effectseven if they end up with a family that meets a lot of their needs better.

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend makes an important point in response to the right hon. Gentleman. Such decisions are not for social workers, but for the courts. The duty of the courts is to make sure that when children are at risk, action is taken. It is for the courts to decide whether the children concerned go into care. If any social worker or council decided that they would not make referrals because of court costs or any other costs, that would be entirely and completely wrong, and I would condemn it out of hand. I do not believe that that is happening around the country, but Lord Laming will explicitly consider the issue in his progress report.

Graham Stuart: rose

Madeleine Moon: rose

Edward Balls: I am going to make a little progress. I shall refer to the issue of the publication of serious case reviews in a second.

Madeleine Moon: May I make an intervention on the specific issue of the courts?

Edward Balls: Okay, I will take it.

Madeleine Moon: I thank my right hon. Friend. In reference to court action, there have been criticisms that social workers spend too much time on record keeping. I have a background in child protection, and I advise my right hon. Friend that records are absolutely essential in court cases. Often they can go back a long time and demonstrate that over a number of years of intervention of the social worker has not been successful in getting the family to the point where the child can be kept safely at home. We should never forget the importance of social work records.

Edward Balls: Of course that is the case. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham did not make the point, because it did not fit into the rhetoric. However, the reality is that good social workers record their interventions with a family and their discussions with other professionals because that is vital not only for the accountability of the service, but to make sure that children are safe. Furthermore, those records are key and critical in court. The idea that a good social worker does not complete records is not of the real world.

Graham Stuart: rose

Edward Balls: I shall make some progress and then take the hon. Gentleman's intervention.
	I said that I would turn to the Opposition motion, and I will do so. I want to take seriously the points that they make in the motion and in this debate and show where we disagree and where, with a little more thought and intellectual engagement, we could achieve a consensus. They start the motion by pointing to the failings in Haringey, and say that they mean that the lessons from the Victoria Climbi inquiry have not been learned. Indeed, in the Queen's Speech debate a few weeks ago, the shadow Secretary of State went further and said:
	Lord Laming has said that the foundation of current children's services is robust, but we are not persuaded of that assertion.[ Official Report, 11 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 773.]
	Other Conservative Members have called into question the very Every Child Matters reforms, although the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has not; I absolve him from that. Those Conservative Members have even called for a new inquiry to investigate the child protection system from first principles. I agree with Lord Laming, who says that that would not be the right approach. In his letter to me, dated 1 December, he said:
	I note that, understandably, there have been calls for a further public Inquiry into the services in Haringey following the death of Baby P. But such a course of action would, in my view, set back the progress that has been made in many places. It could undermine important developments gained and progress made during the past six years and possibly put on hold planned further work. Furthermore, it would divert effort from the actions needed now to keep children safe in Haringey.
	In its response to Lord Laming, the NSPCC says:
	We welcome the vision of Every Child Matters. There has been significant change in children's services over the past five years.
	Indeed, it goes on to say that
	the Every Child Matters programme has the potential to be the most significant achievement for children in recent times.
	In the tragic case of baby P, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham cited at length, the inspectors did identify clear failings in management, oversight and practice. That is why we took the exceptional action that we took. However, as the chief inspector told me, the failings that she identified were exceptional. So we profoundly disagree that we have not learned the lessons or that we are not properly implementing the recommendations of the Victoria Climbi inquiry. As I said, much good work is being done in many areas by social workers, police officers, GPs and health professionals, who do incredibly tough jobs, often in challenging circumstances, with difficult judgments to make every day to keep children safe. They get no publicity when they make the right call, and we should give them our praise and support.
	At the same time, we are not complacent. In the summer last year, the joint chief inspectors' report concluded that more work was needed; the same happened in respect of the end of year Ofsted evaluation. That is why we have ordered all local authorities to look again at all serious case reviews where there was an inadequate judgment and why we have asked Lord Laming to provide us with a progress report. However, to ignore, as the Opposition motion does, the progress made in many areas would not only undermine the achievements of social workers around the country, but put that progress at risk. That would be the wrong thing to do.

Graham Stuart: I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. May I take him back to the figures on child deaths? It is uncharacteristic of him to have used figures that are essentially misleading. The number of child deaths overall is not relevant to this debate; what is relevant is the number of children who die as the result of abuse. The Ofsted evidence to the Children, Schools and Families Committee was clear: the number of children who had died from abuse over 16 months was 210that is, three children a week. For the record, and to make the numbers relevant to this debate, will the Secretary of State confirm that that is his understanding?

Edward Balls: I hesitate to do this, but I will have to refer the hon. Gentleman back to the  Hansard record of the last time that he made the very same point and the reply that I gave. As he knows, the Ofsted figures were different from the Government's because they used a wider base. They included, for example, children who had died as a result of suicide or anorexia nervosaor other deaths that could relate to something that had happened in the homeas opposed to the direct death of a child due to injury from a parent or carer. The figures are not comparable. He knows that as I explained it last time.

Graham Stuart: rose

Edward Balls: I am happy to give way again, but can he please make a better intervention than his last one? We answered it a month ago.

Graham Stuart: I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I am afraid that it is he who needs to go back and read the record. If he goes back to the record of 10 December 2008the Chairman of the Select Committee is in the Chamber todayhe will read that both Michael Hart and Christine Gilbert were quite clear: there were 72 children, of 282, who fell into the category that the Secretary of State has just described. The unequivocal evidence from Ofsted was that 210 children died from abuse in that period. The Secretary of State got it wrong last time, and he has repeated his error today. Will he please look at the record and correct himself on the Floor of the House?

Edward Balls: I did that last time, and I explained the different basis for the figures. We are not disagreeing. Too many children die non-accidental deaths, and we need to deal with that. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to refer to his intervention in which he attempted to pin on me the idea that I had asked the Information Commissioner for advice, even though he knows that that is not the case. If he has a decent intervention, he might make it; I will take it if he wants.
	The second thing that the Opposition called for is for all serious case reviews to be published in full. We are determined to ensure that we do all we can to guarantee that children in every area are kept safe. That is why it is crucial that we learn from mistakes, which is why we carry out serious case reviews. Where the full report or executive summary is inadequate, that is not good enough, and we have asked for all such reports to be investigated. We have also said, following Lord Laming's initial recommendation, that the overview panel for every serious case review should be independently chaired. Indeed, I have asked the new chair of the local safeguarding children board in Haringey, Graham Badman, to re-run the baby P serious case review, such is the seriousness of the issue.
	The Opposition call for all serious case reviews to be published in full, but we fundamentally disagree for two reasons. First, we would not want to compromise the right to privacy or to protection of other siblings or vulnerable children involved who could, in all likelihood, be identified even if their names were redacted; and, secondly, serious case reviews rely on the open and honest involvement of representatives of all the agencies involved. I had to rely on my judgment, and that is what underpinned the letters to Opposition spokespeople that I sent on a series of occasions. Let us hear what the deputy Children's Commissioner says:
	A system which ensures we can establish the full facts behind any tragedy is essential for keeping children safe. I believe that a confidential process which enables agencies to thoroughly and effectively examine all relevant facts is crucial to securing this goal, supported by a comprehensive executive summary which makes public the key issues and recommendations for change.
	That is also the view taken by the NSPCC, which has said:
	The publication of full SCR reports will change the climate in which they are produced and reduce their value. It is probable that the process would move from one focusing on what could be learnt to one focusing on legalistic technicalities, with an end-product that is weak and of negligible value.
	The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that I was distorting the view of the NSPCC and that it has had to correct the position. Let me read from the letter that was written to me by the acting chief executive of the NSPCC on 4 December:
	We therefore endorse the view that full
	serious case reviews
	should not be published.
	It is there on the page in black and white. That is the view of the experts. It is not the view of the Opposition, but in my view they are out on a limb and outside the consensus on this very important matter, and if they prevailed that would put children at risk.

Meg Munn: Is it not also the case that my right hon. Friend's Department initiates research into serious case reviews in order to bring together the learning gained from those reviews across the country? Having a proper assessment of the issues that have come up in many different cases is probably more useful to staff on the groundsocial workers, health visitors, and so onthan having to read through lots of separate case reviews involving circumstances which they perhaps know less about?

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend is right. That is why we publish those reviews. We have also said that executive summaries should have a clear view of all the lessons learned from every individual case. In fact, we have asked Lord Laming to tell us how we can make those reports better in future. In the case of baby P, it is important that there is a full and better executive summary in the public domain. The reason I am not making them public is not because of the advice to me from the Information Commissioner. As I have made clear on repeated occasions in writing and in this House, I did not seek his advice on this matter. It is my judgmentbecause the professionals tell me so, not only the lawyers but the NSPCC and the deputy children's commissionerthat such disclosure would put children's lives at risk.
	This is not something to play politics with but something on which there should be a consensus. I think that it is time that we got off this subject and on to the serious business.

Michael Gove: On the occasion of the Secretary of State's statement to this House, he mentioned the Information Commissioner's ruling. First, why did he not consult the Information Commissioner when he invoked his ruling? Secondlythis is intimately related to the publication of serious case reviewswhy does he put the interests of professionals, their anonymity and their shielding from scrutiny ahead of the maximum possible disclosure to ensure that we have the maximum level of information to create the maximum quality of child protection?

Edward Balls: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has come to the House to participate in this debate. Even though he has been sitting on the Front Bench all this time, he has clearly not been listening to what I have said. I said that the reason I made this decision was not to protect professionalswhy would I want to protect professionals who are guilty of making mistakes? I made the decision because I want to protect children who would be put at risk of harm if we made these reports public. That is also the view of the NSPCC and the deputy Children's Commissioner, and the consensus among experts. On 18 November, in a letter to the shadow spokesman, I said that I had made the decision in the light of the Information Commissioner's decision in 2006. I made it clear in the House when we discussed these matters that I had not asked for his advice in this case, but I was relying on a past ruling. I then wrote to the hon. Gentlemanthis may be another letter that he failed to read and act uponon 25 November, saying:
	On this point, my letter to you of 18 November explained that I had been advised, given the strong terms of the decision of the Information Commissioner in 2006, that I should not allow anyone, even parliamentarians, to see the Report.
	I went on to explain why, on that particular issue, I had changed my mind. I said:
	In your point of order, you ask me to 'approach the Information Commissioner to establish if a copy of the serious case review can be made available to the public'. As you know, my letter of 18 Nov referred to the Information Commissioner's 2006 decision. At no point have I asked for a ruling from the Information Commissioner on the question of publishing this
	serious case review
	and I have not claimed to have done so. Nor do I intend to do so. It is my judgement, consistent with 'Working Together to Safeguard Children', that it is imperative to keep the SCR confidential.
	That is what I wrote in November, before and after the debate. My reason is not to protect professionals, but to keep children safe. That is what I thought was the purpose of this debate, and that is why I urged the Opposition to drop playing politics with this issue and join the consensus to keep children safe. That is the best way to approach it.

Michael Gove: On 20 November, the Secretary of State twice specifically cited the ruling of the Information Commissioner. Later that day, the Information Commissioner made it clear that he had not been consulted. The Secretary of State did not say on 20 November that he had not consulted the Information Commissionerhe did so only after the Information Commissioner went public. I just want to know why he did not bother to ask the Information Commissioner and why the Information Commissioner had to contact the press in order to make it clear that he had been kept in the dark.

Edward Balls: It would have been much better if the hon. Gentleman had decided to speak in this debate instead of just intervening from the Front Bench. We might then have thought that his commitment on these issues was serious rather than just posturing. I made the following clear to him in a letter on 18 November:
	You may be aware that the Information Commissioner took a decision on a request to make available a Serious Case Review in 2006. This risk was one of the considerations taken into account by him in that case.
	I made it clear in that letter, and in the House, that based on that 2006 ruling and our judgment concerning the safety of children, we would not publish the serious case reviews. I wrote to him again a week and a half later [ Interruption. ] The issues being raised in this debate are intended to divert attention from the real issues. My letter of the 28 November to the hon. Gentleman says:
	I have not claimed to have done so
	that is, to go to the Information Commissioner for a ruling. It continues:
	Nor do I intend to do so. It is my judgment, consistent with  Working Together to Safeguard Children, that it is imperative to keep the SCR confidential
	That judgment is shared by the NSPCC and the deputy Children's Commissioner.
	We should not be playing politics with this issue. We are doing the right thing for the safety of children, and the Conservatives' persistent attempt to find a political difference is at the expense of that safety, which is why I reject their arguments outright.

Paddy Tipping: Does the Secretary of State agree that a detached observer listening to this part of the debate would be astonished that the principle that the needs of children are paramount is not being considered? Instead, we have been diverted by small, petty debating points made for political advantage.

Edward Balls: The detached observer would take seriously the views of the NSPCC and the deputy Children's Commissioner that the right thing to do, in order to keep children safe, is not to publish these reports. They would reject the idea that that advice should be ignored by those on the Opposition Front Bench in order to play politicsespecially the shadow Secretary of State, who did not even bother to make the main speech in this debate. I shall move on.

John Hemming: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Balls: In a second. My third point concerns the Opposition's call for all local safeguarding children boards to be independently chaired and for the Ofsted inspection system to be overhauled. As they know, the system is now changing with the end of annual performance assessments and the announcement by Ofsted inspectors that there will be unannounced reviews of safeguarding every year in every children's authority area. I welcome that change.
	On local safeguarding children boards, we have made it clear in response to Lord Laming's recommendation that the serious case review should always be independently chaired. That is the right thing to do. There are different views, however, on the wider question of whether the local safeguarding children board should also be independently chaired. The Conservatives jumped out with a press release in November, and I understand their view, but there are other expert voices in the debate who are concerned that immediately to require independent chairs of the overall board would weaken their effectiveness and could put children at risk. That is why, despite the urging of the shadow spokesperson, I will not jump the gun. I will not jump the gun for the sake of a press release; I will wait for the views of Lord Laming on the issue, and only then will we take a view as to whether the Conservatives are right that an independent chair is the right way to go.

Annette Brooke: On an earlier point concerning the review of Ofsted's inspection, does the Secretary of State agree with the NSPCC that it would be timely to undertake a high-level review of Ofsted's inspection methodology?

Edward Balls: I know that there have been debates on these matters, and the Select Committee took a close interest in them as well. Change is happening in Ofsted at the moment, with the move towards a joint inspectorate in relation to the comprehensive area assessment arrangements, and new arrangements for safeguarding begin in April. The right thing to do is to get those arrangements in place. I am sure that the Select Committee will take a close look at the way Ofsted proceeds in these matters, which will be welcome.

John Hemming: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Edward Balls: In a second. I have two points to make in the time remaining to me.
	I completely agree that we need well-trained, well-led and well-motivated social workers who spend as much time as possible with vulnerable children and their families. That is why we have set up the social work taskforce, and why we are considering the quality of training, leadership and mid-career training. They have an important job, and it is important that we work hard with the taskforce to implement that process. I have also asked the taskforce to make it a priority to review the effectiveness of procurement and IT using the integrated children's system, which was an important part of the speech made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I know that there have been concerns that the IT systems have not worked as well as they should in some areas, but the integrated children's system does not ask practitioners to collect more information than they should to do their jobs. As we heard earlier, it is vital that proper detailed records are kept. In fact, the reason Scandinavian children's protection systems are commended is that Sweden and Denmark use the ICS system, as do Canada and Australia.
	 Computing magazine reported last year that the head of safeguarding in Kingston, Mr. Duncan Clark, believed that
	top-quality professionals should be able to treat the system
	ICS
	as an everyday part of their work.
	It reported that Mr. Clark had said:
	We are not asking staff to be IT bods, we are asking them to learn to use a tool to enhance practice...Any distraction caused will be short-lived. If staff are still stuck at their desks because they are not adapting, they are probably doing less harm there than in the field, because that is not a good-quality social worker.
	Myriad quotations from the experts in the field state that ICS, well used, is a good system, but that we have to address the IT issues and ensure that social workers have the training to use it well, as they do in Sweden, Denmark, Canada and Australia. That is what we are asking the taskforce to do.

Edward Timpson: Can the Secretary of State confirm that as part of the social work taskforce's activities, foster carers will be consulted for their experience of front-line social work, so that the taskforce is fully informed of what goes on on the front line when social workers visit foster carers' homes and the children whom they are there to protect?

Edward Balls: Of course I will, and the British Association for Fostering and Adoption is part of that group, so we will ensure that that happens.

Barry Sheerman: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Edward Balls: Of course I give way to the Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee.

Barry Sheerman: The Secretary of State will know that I do not agree with some of the criticisms of data collectionI agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong), who made an intervention on that point. However, will the Secretary of State take on board the representations of Professor Susan White and Professor Wastell, who have written to me in my role as Chairman of the Select Committee to say that some modification of the ICS system is necessary? Will he be open-minded about such modification? I do not ask him to get rid of it, and I am not making a sweeping denunciation of it, but it could be modified to be of better use in practice.

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend's point is well made. I have already referred the letters that he mentions to Lord Laming and the taskforce for their consideration. I have said that we will consider the whole use of ICS and its IT effectiveness, but although this is partly about computers, it is partly about training and partly about management. Good social workers record their work, but they also get out in the field. ICS, well used, can enable that to happen, and we will ensure that it does.

Parmjit Dhanda: There is a danger that in discussing these matters, we sometimes become entirely focused on giving social workers more training, more help and even more pay. It is important to respect our social workers, but they also need the tools of the trade and modern-day IT to do their job. I can recall clearly comments that were made, particularly by those on the Opposition Benches, in our debates on the vetting and barring scheme. Coupled with ICS, that can make a huge difference in protecting children. I hope that all Members appreciate both ICS and the vetting and barring scheme, which I believe many Opposition Members now respect because it can make a big difference to the statistics. Those statistics are children, after all, and those things can help to save their lives.

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend makes an important point, and ICS, well used, and ContactPoint are both valuable ways of keeping children safe.
	Strangely, ContactPoint was omitted from the Opposition's motion. They omitted any mention of their intention to abolish it. It was developed in response to a key recommendation of Lord Laming and the Climbi inquiry. We all know that no information-sharing system can, in and of itself, keep children safe, but we believe that ContactPoint will make a real difference. It will allow those who work with children to intervene earlier to prevent problems from escalating and ensure that no child slips through the net of support, and it will free up social workers to spend more time with vulnerable children. The idea of having a database that has only the vulnerable children on it shows a complete lack of understanding of the reality of child protection in our country.
	The Opposition disagree with what I have just said. They say that ContactPoint will increase the risk of vulnerable children being abused. The Leader of the Opposition regularly says that it is a waste of taxpayers' money and that they would scrap it, on top of the 300 million of cuts to children's services that they have promised to make in the coming year.
	The Opposition are out of step not only with Lord Laming's recommendation, but with the NSPCC, Action for Children, the British Association of Social Workers, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, the Local Government Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Children's Inter-Agency Group, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Youth Justice Board, the disabled children's charity KIDS, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Royal College of General Practitionersyes, the GPs, too. All those experts support ContactPoint and are working with us to ensure its successful roll-out in the summer because they know that it is important for keeping children safe. Again, I urge Opposition Front Benchers to reconsider and tell the Leader of the Opposition that he proposes a spending cut too far.
	Mr. Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's, stated:
	Michael Gove has said that a Conservative government would scrap ContactPoint, the Government's children's database... But I would ask Mr. Gove to think long and hard about whether or not Barnardo's, which works with more than 100,000 of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in Britain, would support ContactPoint if we thought it would, as Mr. Gove suggests, increase the risk of children being abused. We believe the contrary to be true.
	The Opposition are out on a limb and it is time they stopped digging.

Tim Loughton: rose

Edward Balls: I will give way.

Barry Sheerman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is now 8.41 pm The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made a 47-minute speech. There have been constant interruptions from the Opposition Front Benchers. Should Back Benchers simply give up attending such debates? Are we going to get any time after Front Benchers have finished intervening?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration. I have been following the debate carefully, even when I was not in the Chair, and it has been characterised by a large number of long interventions, which contribute to it but inevitably take time out of it. Some of those interventions were made by people who are seeking to catch my eye, and that is counter-productive. I must agree with the hon. Gentleman's point that, increasingly, the share of the debate taken by Front Benchers is not fair on Back Benchers.

Tim Loughton: May I just

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. In the light of my comments, we ought to move on. I call the Secretary of State.

Edward Balls: I am happy to debate the issues at any time and at any length the Opposition choose, because they are vital matters. I hope, next time, that the shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will participate properly in the debate rather than just make interventions.
	Lord Laming will report this month, the social work taskforce will present its first report in the spring and the full roll-out of ContactPoint starts this summer. I believe that we are taking steps to ensure that our country has the best child protection arrangements in the world. It is no time for opposition for opposition's sake. I genuinely hope that we can achieve a cross-party consensus on the reforms because they are vital for keeping children safe. I commend our amendment to the House.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I might venture to say that the matters that we are debating this evening are extremely serious and, too frequently, heart rending. I think that the manner in which we discuss them will be of considerable interest to our constituents, and we should bear that in mind.
	The time constraints mean that there will now be a six-minute limit on Back Benchers' speeches.

Annette Brooke: In principle, I welcome the debate. It is important to hold a constructive discussion on child protection. However, I am not sure about the quality of the debate.
	Yesterday The Good Childhood Inquiry was published. It reinforced the fact that every child should be entitled to live in a loving and safe environment. Today we are discussing child abuse and deaths at the hands of parents and carers, and we cannot deny that, however we play around with numbers, the figure remains too high. We have spoken a lot about deathsthe tragedies are before usbut we should also remember that child abuse can permanently damage children. They grow into adults who in turn mayI stress the word mayabuse others. We should not play with the statistics. We just have to do better. Child protection should be at the heart of our societal aims and embedded as a priority in the whole of the children's work force.
	On the whole, we are getting better at listening to children. Indeed, the Government have made great strides, with meaningful consultation with children and young people. Looking back on the tragic Victoria Climbi case, I recall that none of the agencies ever spoke to Victoria. We recognise the importance of that today, but as was said earlier, half the children killed or seriously injured through abuse and neglect are babies less than a year old. A further 20 per cent. are toddlers under the age of five.
	When younger children are the victims, professionals must have the opportunity to examine and assess them carefully. Communication can come in all sorts of guises. In the baby P case, the baby did not appear to have been seen in any detail by social workers. At the heart of our debate should be listening to and focusing on the children and ensuring that we are thinking about their needs and best interests.
	The Government must listen and respond more quickly at times; I speak in frustration rather than confrontation. Let me give just two examples. In the debate on the Children Act 2004, we spoke at great length about the quantity and quality of social workers and about how the priority for any new systemmore important than the system itselfwas to have high-quality, well-trained front-line workers. We spoke a lot about the need for recruitment and retention. I welcome the setting up of the social work taskforce, but it seems that it took yet another series of tragedies to bring that belatedly about.
	The Audit Commission published a report in October that concluded:
	there is little evidence that children's trusts have improved outcomes for children.
	I asked a question about that to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, who replied:
	We are very disappointed that it chose to take such a negative approach,
	and said that the report
	draws on fieldwork...almost a year old.[ Official Report, 4 November 2008; Vol. 482, c. 115.]
	The response to studies that shed a critical light on services for our children, as the UNICEF report too did, should not be just to rubbish the methodology. A qualified comment is fine, but should we not always consider how we can do things better?
	I know that the Government are responding on children's trusts. It would be interesting to know exactly what is planned and how it would dovetail into the safeguarding children agenda. The Government often respond by referring to their national initiativesWe've done this, and so on. There is no doubt that the Government's children plan, its update and some other strategies are important and to be welcomed. In fact, I would like a national strategy for preventing child deaths, abuse and neglect as wellthat is another question for the Minister who will respond to the debatebut surely what is really important is constantly reviewing what is happening at the local level.
	At the time of the debate on the 2004 Act there was cross-party support on the need for better multi-agency working and a clear line of accountabilitylessons that were to be learned, but appear not to have been put into practice in the case of baby P. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) on the dignified way in which she has pushed for the truth and for improvements in her local social services.
	Lessons can undoubtedly be learned from serious case reviews. Training and work force-related recommendations need to be acted upon. The Liberal Democrats have called for serious case reviews to be published, albeit suitably anonymised and perhaps with certain details removed. I do not think that we will return to the crossfire that we have just seen, but it is important to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), who could not tell anybody else what he had been allowed to read in the serious case review, was convinced that there were issuesthe most crucial issuesthat needed to be raised publicly. Indeed, that was also the view of others who read that report. This is not about putting children in danger; it is about improving safeguarding practices.
	It is important to be clear about the situation with regard to the Information Commissioner. The final point in his letter, dated 21 November, stated:
	The ICO stands ready to provide advice on what may be disclosed on a case by case basis.
	However, it has been confirmed that his view on the matter in question was not sought. I therefore do not believe that we have come to the end of the line.
	I appreciate that the Secretary of State fears that people would not participate fully. Indeed, Lord Laming has been asked how the quality, consistency and impact of serious case reviews could be improved, and whether the right balance between the public executive summary and the confidential serious case review has been struck. I would like to ask the Secretary of State whether we can be assured that he will approach this question with an open mind. He has already stated that he is against the reviews being made public, and it is clear that there are differences of opinion that need to be evaluated. For example, a senior figure who was brought into Haringey supported the idea that a large part of that case review should be made public. I am looking for a balanced approach, because at the end of the day, we have to learn lessons.
	The Ofsted findings from 92 serious case reviews were shocking, and most Members have suggested that there is much more to do. More than a third were found to be inadequate. Commenting on an in-depth report on 50 of the cases, Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools said:
	This report and the latest figures available clearly show that many children's services are failing to learn fast enough from the most serious cases of abuse and neglect. Too many opportunities are missed and too many vulnerable children are still being let down.
	We cannot be complacent. Some things have improved, but we must look for more.
	The length of time that some serious case reviews have taken has also been highlighted, with some taking between three and four years. They must be completed quickly, and they must focus on the child. They must not just be descriptive; they need to analyse why things have happened, and they must be independent.
	We are aware that the Secretary of State is keen to follow the recommendations of the NSPCC. The society has recommended that Ministers should report to Parliament on a biennial basis with a review of learning from serious case reviews of child deaths, and set out how each relevant Whitehall Department will respond to the recommendations. Perhaps a commitment to that practice, while the Laming review is being undertaken, would take us forward.
	My instinct is that the local safeguarding children board should be independently chaired. It cannot be right that the director of children's services should hold that post. I have been gathering data from local councils, and I was interested in a comment, offering the opposite viewthat no one else would have the drive to take matters forward and challenge other agencies. That highlights how important the person specification, recruitment, appointment, support and training of the chairman of the board and its membership will be. I am sure that the board will also need extra resources and strengthening.
	We have mentioned the Ofsted inspection service, and I understand that Ofsted will review how it approaches its inspections. I welcome the Local Government Association's summit recommendation that the association should discuss with Ofsted how it can most effectively assess the quality of child protection practice and help councils and their partners to improve.
	When we were talking about those issues in the Select Committee, it was noted that Ofsted appeared, on the surface, to have a strong education bias. There are issues about the heads of children's services, the majority of whom have come via the education route. I welcome the fact that there will be a new course at the National College for School Leadership, and I would like to ask whether all directors will be required to take it, because management and accountability are all-important.
	My colleague in the other place, Baroness Walmsley, has raised the issue of the General Social Care Council codes of practice, which set out the standards expected of both social care workers and their employers in delivering social care services. There is currently a substantive difference in the status of the codes for social care workers and their employers. Compliance with the code for workers is required for those who are registered with the GSCC, but the code of practice for employers has no statutory force. Would not placing the code for employers on a statutory footing and including it within Ofsted's inspection framework ensure that employers in social care were responsible for making sure that people were suitable to enter the social care work force, to provide sufficient support and so forth?
	Training and safeguarding for the whole children's work force is absolutely vital. Obviously that includes social workers, but it is much broader than that and includes teachers, doctors and health visitors. Anybody coming into contact with children in a professional way needs to be able to recognise the signs of abuse and to be confident enough to follow them up. I believe that those two points are recognised by Ofsted and by the NSPCC. Indeed, the GSCC points out that there is no national standard for training and safeguarding.
	Tonight, the official Opposition have said a lot about social workers, and I would like to place on record the fact that theirs is an incredibly difficult job: it is an undervalued occupation in which morale can easily become very low; that may be followed by a drive to move away, and with greater caseloads, the whole situation becomes self-perpetuating. This is something that we have to tackle, for the sake of giving better support to the professionals themselves. I welcome the Local Government Association campaign, which will focus on recruitment, retention and respect in children's social work.
	We discussed earlier the part of the motion that refers to
	scrapping the highly prescriptive template for the Integrated Children's System.
	I do not think I would use the word scrapping at this time, but I believe that there is a strong case for reviewing that system. Again, we should think and talk constructively about it, as there are enough criticisms around that risk is not a core focus of the current system and that there is too much paperwork and bureaucracy. That is not to say that there should be no paperwork, but if the criticism has been made, it needs to be examined.
	Throughout the change from the old to the new system, a number of academics have questioned whether it was right to get rid of the child protection register. Is there a danger that child support workers will not see the wood for the trees? Are the police being pushed off the stage a bit by the new system? Are they not brought into a situation until it is judged a crime? I think we should be prepared to ask ourselves whether we have got the right system. That does not mean changing the whole thing, but we should be brave enough to ask that.
	It seems to me right to ask Lord Laming to carry out the review at this time, and to do it fairly quicklybut is there not a case for having a fresh pair of eyes, or even a group of people coming in to see what else they might see? Obviously, Lord Laming as the architect will see things in a certain way, just as the Opposition see things in a different way from the Government, but I believe that there is a case for having that fresh pair of eyes to look at how things are working out at local level.
	We Liberals also oppose ContactPoint, purely on the basis that if we take costs and benefits in the widest sense into account, the benefits do not outweigh the costs. In the costs I include the potential risks. I have never been convinced that it will be a secure systema doubt that has been backed up by a number of reports.
	We have not paid much attention tonight to preventiona subject sadly lacking in the Opposition motion. This afternoon, fortuitously, I had an opportunity to talk to a member of the WAVE TrustWAVE stands for Worldwide Alternatives to Violencewho explained that a person's propensity to violence can be determined in the first few years of life. It may result from witnessing violence in the home, harsh parental discipline, neglect or lack of attachment. That shows us that if we really want to improve things, we must home in on preventive measures.
	The Family Nurse Partnership is an example of a good intervention. My difficulty with it is that it does not reach out far enough. I should also prefer there to be more health visitors. The number of health visitors is falling, at a time when there is a larger case load. The training has been changedit is much more generic than it used to bebut whom do parents actually trust? Their health visitor. That really does need to be reconsidered.
	The Government have put more effort into parenting classes, which are important, but much more should be done to support families. If we are to promote successful interventions by means of the strategy that I mentioned, should we not establish a national early prevention agency to drive an early prevention strategy? Every time there is a great tragedy, it is the symptoms rather than the root causes that are addressed. Public inquiries are important, but if we really want to do something, we must examine the root causes of abuse.
	Further actions that could lead to prevention include confidential hotlines for whistleblowers so that there is no doubt that a complaint is being investigated if, for example, a social worker is feeling less than supported. I often observe that when a tragic case arises, neighbours talk to the media, and they turn out to have been aware that something odd might have been going on. Why should we not set up a hotline enabling neighbours to report their concern?
	Another preventive measure that we need, about which I have said a great deal over the years, is a comprehensive system of therapeutic services. Once a child has been abused, treatment at the time may be life-saving, and may prevent the abuse from being perpetuated and affecting future generations.
	I have already mentioned the first point in the Local Government Association's five-point plan. The second is to make it easier to shift services towards prevention and early intervention. The third relates to resources, which is a big question. What we require of our children's services departments is a big ask: we cannot expect them to do their job with less than adequate resources. Fourthly, the LGA says that councils should have access to the best possible advice, which seems pretty sensible. Fifthly, links between the care and child protection services should be improved. That in itself is a subject for debate.
	I am well aware that many other Members wish to speak, so I shall merely say that this is all about family support, getting the balance right and always putting the child first. Rather than aiming for confrontation, we should look for more and more ways to reduce what I consider to be a blight on our society.

Barry Sheerman: It is a pleasure to be given almost as long to speak in the Chamber as I was given on the Today programme when I was interviewed by John Humphrys. Perhaps I should be grateful for small mercies. However, I consider it a sad comment on our parliamentary procedures that Back Benchers on both sides of the House have been more or less squeezed out of the debate. That is absolutely disgraceful, and should be raised on another occasion.
	I was disappointed by the opening speech of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and the emphasis that it placed on certain issues. This debate was promoted as a discussion of child protection. We have concentrated almost entirely on issues around one particular casethat of baby Pand other cases of such gravity. Such cases are crucial and heart-rending examples of the dreadful things that can happen to children, but, to be totally honest, I think they are the type of cases where it will be most difficult to achieve a reduction in numbers. I have compared the Ofsted figures and those of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and I think that the NSPCC figures are more accurate. Indeed, a breakdown of the Ofsted figures suggests to me that it presented its figures to the Committee I chair in a misleading way.
	I believe that child protection includes the much broader remit of stopping child abuse of the physical or sexual kindwhich very often does not end in death, thank Godand that we should also have regard to child misery. It is out there, and that weighs terribly on my conscienceas well as, I am sure, the consciences of most Members. It is important to be able to pick up through children's social services when a child is deeply unhappy, but that is very difficult to do. We must tackle this in a much more positive way, so I shall now say one or two unpopular things.
	We need a well trained, highly motivated work force, and a strategy to provide the skills and training tools needed. The social work profession is good in part, but it is not very good in a much larger part. The culture must be changed. That might involve giving more respect and status, or changing the name of the social work profession, or looking at the relationship between health visitors and social workers.

Meg Munn: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is also important to give status to other people who work in child care, such as nursery nurses?

Barry Sheerman: I absolutely agree with that point.
	I hope that the inquiry that the Secretary of State has set in motion will look very fundamentally at the social work profession. It needs to be better rewarded, better motivated and better trained. Some evidence given to our Committee contained serious criticism of the quality of university training for social workers, and that must be looked at. We also need a trusted interface between parents and carers. We want a profession that is helpful and supportive; we do not want people to think that the inquisition is coming. We must also acknowledge that the social work profession is more difficult than is often thought.
	Let me add a point that is central to the debate and has not been mentioned: we need to have the ability to track a child's progress, particularly between birth and the age of five. That is why I certainly will not add my voice to the criticism of ContactPoint. At present in this country, when a child faces problems of the kind I am talking about, it can go totally undetected. Unless he or she comes to the notice of the authorities, nothing is known. Many child deaths occur in families who have had no contact with children's services and social workers. Our system needs to be more like the Scandinavian one, so that we know where children are and we are able to monitor their progress much better. At present, there is very little possibility of doing that, which greatly worries me.
	On the system of accountability, Ofsted reports to this House through the Committee I have the privilege to chair. I said to the chief inspector the last time she came before the Committee that I did not think it was good enough to have such a remote inspection system, which did not involve enough face-to-face contact between her inspectors and the departments being inspected. There are only 150 children's departments. Why is an Ofsted inspector not inserted permanently in each of those local authorities? There are 2,300 inspectors and 1,500 extra inspectors. Why cannot we have that? I ask that question because there is great public concern. The role could involve much more support than at presentthe role is currently carried out as a paper analysis.

Graham Stuart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Barry Sheerman: I do not think I can allow another intervention.
	We must also learn from experience and from all these dreadful cases. I urge us to listen to the outside experts; we are not the experts here. I want to secure a consensus, and we might be able to get it from the people who know about this stuff. Politicians do not really know about it; we have to be judged by the professionals. When they say that serious case reviews should be published, I will then be convinced, but I am not convinced at the moment.
	We also need the systematic collection of records and data. It is so easy to say that it is all red tape and to cite the figure of 80 per cent. Social work and monitoring children and families is a highly complex task. It needs to be done with a human touch, with good management and with the data, which must be scrupulously kept and scrupulously checked. In every serious case review that I have looked at, I have found that so often things go wrong when management decisions are made on the basis of data that do not exist.

Graham Stuart: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who is Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee and who has made a number of interesting points.
	At the outset, I wish to say, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, that social workers are the unsung heroes of the public sector. They put their heart and soul into their jobs, and they work long hours, often for little reward and in some extremely difficult circumstances. It is an incredibly sad fact of our political life that public perceptions of social work, especially throughout this country, are so low. As hon. Members have mentioned, someone who visits one of the Scandinavian countries will witness a people who value and respect the work done by social workers on behalf of society's most vulnerable and neglected individuals. I am sure that we would all like to see the profession join the likes of teaching and medicine as something that more children and college students aspire to enter once they reach adulthood. The baby P case reminded us all of just how high the stakes can be, because when things are not running smoothly, when systems do not work and when people take their eye off the ball, tragedy can strike. That is why it is so important for us to look at the state of the profession and take urgent steps to reform it.
	I wish briefly to touch on recruitment, which, put simply, is in crisis. According to Unison, vacancy levels in children's social care work are running at more than 10 per cent., and three quarters of all local authorities are reporting difficulties in recruiting social workers for these teams. Higher numbers than those provided by Unison could be cited, but undoubtedly the vacancy rate is very high. There has been a 30 per cent. rise in vacancy rates in just four years, and more than a third of those who study social work at university do not go into the profession. The number of whole-time equivalent social workers per 100,000 head of population is just 87.6. When I looked on the internet earlier today, I found that the figure for Massachusetts and some other US states where we do not think of public provision as being that great is more than 200 per 100,000 head of population. Unison recently did a survey of 369 front-line staff across the country and found that two thirds of respondents were working in teams where more than 20 per cent. of posts were vacant.
	The reasons for such a shortfall in front-line staff have been set out to Ministers over and over again. One of the leading reasons is, of course, pay, which is a difficult issue. At the top end of the tree, a social worker can earn, at most, 40,000 a year. That should be compared with the sums paid to deputy head teachers or head teachers in schools, where salaries of double that are more common. Thus, one can see that social work is a less attractive route for someone to take. There is a huge difference in incentive between the different professions. If we want social work to be regarded in a similar light, we need to address the fact that the average salary for a social worker is just 23,600. The question has to be asked: is that high enough to attract the brightest and the best into the profession?
	We must ensure that we target attracting people into the profession, and retaining and motivating them as our No. 1 concern. That is even more important than the systems, although of course we need good systems and to ensure that information is shared. High quality, highly motivated social workers in full-time posts will guarantee continuity and good information sharing far more effectively than overblown Government-driven IT projects. That is why there is so much concern about those projects that the Government are currently pursuing.
	The key is to improve the status and attraction of social work. Anthony Douglas, chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, said recently:
	when you look at what has been done with teachers over the last ten years on pay and recruitment, that is the sort of thing we need. We need to start on an academic threshold on entry. That is important. We need bright people. Then we need proper career development. And we need social workers to be able to earn a lot while on the front line.
	Perhaps that is one of the factors that has stopped young people wanting to go into social work in the first place.
	For an example of a positive response to the recruitment issue, I cite my local authority, the East Riding of Yorkshire council. It recently initiated a recruitment and retention plan, which sought to address shortages in children's social worker posts. Its award-winning approach saw a reduction in vacancies from 50 per cent. to just 6 per cent. in 12 months. It introduced several initiatives, including a social worker recruitment pool, a care ambassador scheme and the production of a DVD and a prospectus for all local schools, colleges and universities. The council faced up to that issue and made a serious difference.
	Social workers are the unsung heroes and we need to ensure that they are in place and properly supported. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) emphasised, we need an holistic, joined-up approach in which issues such as the lack of universal cover by health visitorswhich has happened under this Governmentare looked at again. We need early intervention, and we should always remember the evidence that the Committee heard: that children who suffer from neglect are damaged more than any other children apart from those who suffer the most severe physical abuse.

Hilary Armstrong: Too much of our child protection policy has been constructed following tragic cases. I am afraid that I can go back a lot further than the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). At the beginning of my time in this House, I served on the Committee considering the Bill that was introduced after three very tragic cases during the mid-1980s and the Cleveland child abuse case. Those cases, of course, provided very different perspectives. The inquiries into the cases of the three children who died saw them as a failure of agencies to work together effectively and the failure of social services departments to intervene, especially when parents were avoiding contact. The Cleveland case was on the other side of the issue, and the social services and the medical profession were criticised for over-zealous diagnosis of sexual abuse and intervention that was too hasty and overrode the rights of parents. Somehow, in the midst of all that, we had to construct legislation. At the same time, social workers were trying to do their job with very different messages coming from this House and the world outside.
	The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) talked about his visits to Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, and how well they were doing in respect for social workers. When I made such visits, the social pedagogues told me that they would not be able to work in the same way if they had our press. They said, We don't have everything that we do paraded in tabloids. We don't know how people ever go into social work in the UK, because whatever decision they take is frequently pilloried. We must all take some responsibility for that, and I am afraid that the earlier exchange would perhaps reinforce that view among social workers rather than making them feel that people in this House were seriously trying to come to terms with what is happening in the world in which they are working.
	During the passage of the Children Act 1989I invite the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to read some of the exchanges that took placeI had to work extremely hard to get the then Government to take seriously the suggestion that training should be written into it. It was a battle royal to get training written in as one of the basic requirements for early-years workers and those working with vulnerable children.
	We cannot eliminate risk altogether, although we sometimes talk as though that were possible. Some of our press certainly talk as though we could. We cannot do that. People have to be enabled to make sound and robust judgments, but it must be clear what is expected of workers in a particular position. The tragedy at the moment is that workers are totally risk-averse. I talk to lots of directors of children's services and chief executives, and it seems that the system has become totally risk-averse. That is not in the interests of children, either. It is in our interests and theirs to have more long-term strategic objectives, which we allow people to get on with and to work with. Yes, we should inspect and, yes, we should hold people to account, but we should recognise the seriousness of the job that people are doing in a way that enables them to make sound judgments.
	We also have to do far more to support parents. The risks are greater when parents are not confident, sure or able to take the right decisions. So, the early intervention that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) talked about and that I have talked about until everybody is bored silly is still at the heart of good child protection. We need effectively to support parents in their role as parents. We should not see parenting as a natural skill that everybody has. I do not know any parent who, when they are being honest late at night, says that it is all easy and straightforward. Every parent has huge challenges and huge difficulties. It is our responsibility to ensure that the support for parents is such that we tackle child protection in a much more serious way.

Robert Wilson: Child protection is absolutely at the top of the agenda in my constituency and I want to take the opportunity of this important debate to focus on some local issues.
	As many have said, the tragic case of baby P exposed a catalogue of failures at Haringey social services department, but it was not an isolated case. I think we all know that. My local authority, Reading, experienced a similar tragedy with the death of three-year-old Trae-Bleu Layne, who died in October 2006 from methadone poisoning when she was injected by her mother to make her sleep. The council's handling of the case was subsequently described as inadequate by Ofsted. The child was under the supervision of Reading borough council's children's department, and during the inquest into her death the coroner was critical of the failure to do enough to safeguard her well-being. In particular, there was a failure to ensure regular visits and to monitor those visits.
	The mother was a known heroin addict and the police admitted that both they and social services staff could have done more to protect the child. The coroner concluded that, despite the mother's manipulative efforts to stop social workers visiting the house,
	the frequency for seeing Trae-Bleu fell well below the required and acceptable level.
	One would think that an episode like that would act as the strongest possible warning to a local authority, but in 2008 Reading borough council was one of only eight councils, including Haringey and Wokingham borough council, to have its child protection services deemed inadequate by Ofsted.
	The main findings of that Ofsted report make very uncomfortable reading for anyone involved in Reading. It highlighted a catalogue of failures in the children's services department. It specifically noted that key child protection assessments were not being completed within acceptable time scales, that personal information on children was not being stored in a way that was easily retrievable, and finally that there was weak performance management in the local authority's social care service.
	Although the lead councillor for children's services was sacked at a full council meeting last week for his negligence in leading that service, a whistleblower has stepped forward and described a culture of bullying in the service. If that is true, that culture undoubtedly contributed to systemic failure in the department. What I find difficult to understand is that the very people in the department who were employed to protect Reading's most vulnerable children were probably being bullied themselves. However, it is not the first Reading borough department about which I have heard allegations that a culture of bullying exists.
	Unfortunately, the bad news does not stop there. Reading borough council also has problems with its performance relating to looked-after children. The Ofsted report highlighted the disturbing fact that only a relatively low proportion of children leaving care achieve one pass or more at GCSE. I know that that is not so uncommon around the country but, if we are serious about social mobility, then surely we must ensure that vulnerable children are able to access a decent education.
	Another worrying aspect of the report was that it found that there was a
	lack of clear, agreed staff recruitment and retention strategy
	in the children's department. Reading council has stated that it wishes to take on more social workers to ease the burden on existing workers, although it appears that the reason it has not been able to recruit and retain staff is the culture of the department. That said, the poor public image of social work following the crisis after baby P, coupled with the growing pressure of the job, has clearly cut the number of people who are willing to enter the profession.
	That is incredibly sad, because social workers do an extremely important and valuable job, and most do it quite brilliantly. I stand in awe of the contribution that many of them make. It is our duty, in this House this evening, to help to restore the reputation of social workers, not to try to destroy their profession. In this respect, the Ofsted report noted the fact that action has been taken in Reading over the last 18 months to deal with significant staff capability issues and to address shortcomings in supervision and front-line practice. I pray that those actions will bring about a significant improvement.
	However, it is true that the Government's red tape is stopping people doing their jobs, and we heard earlier this evening about the 80 per cent. of time spent on paperwork. No amount of child protection legislation is a substitute for skilled professionals. Social workers need to be allowed to get on with the jobs that they are extremely qualified to do, instead of collecting data and ticking boxes.
	As far as Reading council is concerned, I support the changes that it is implementing and understand that it is trying to make improvements. I hope that the results of the recent Ofsted report will trigger some deep thinking and reflection about past errors and behaviour, but there is no room for complacency or further error in either Reading and Wokingham. Improvements must be deep-seated and long lasting. A real change must take place in the running of children's services both locally and nationally, so that all our constituents get the services that they are entitled to receive.
	Whether they involve baby P in Haringey or Trae-Bleu Layne in Reading, we all have a duty to ensure that such local authority failures are never repeated.

Meg Munn: I shall deal with just three issues in my contribution. I want to speak about the importance of raising the status of those who work in child protection, and about the need for better training and better inspection.
	I very much welcome the tone that Members across the House have taken on the importance of social work and the jobs that are done. That is something of a turnaround; in my 20 years in social work, I certainly never felt loved by the public generally, or by any Government of the day. The reality is that for years, Governments have not focused on the profession. The number of people in social work is much smaller than the number in teaching and nursing. The time has come to focus on the issue, and to raise the status of all involved, whether they are child care workers, nursery nurses, health visitors or social workers. That will mean more money, and more investment. We should not just raise salariesit has been amply demonstrated that that needs to happenbut make investment in ongoing training.
	Training is enormously important at the outset of the career, but continuous professional development is equally important. Quite apart from the issues that we have debated, such as whether social workers are too much tied to computers or to recording, I worry that not enough time is put aside in their day, week or month for professional development and learning. I recently tabled a question, to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families responded, on what research is being undertaken on those issues. There are 22 such pieces of research being undertaken. They take up two pages of A4. My concern is not that that is too much research, or that it is problematic; my question is how people on the front line will get to know the outcome of that research. What aid will they be given to learn from those detailed investigations?
	I want to come on to an issue that we have talked about at great lengthserious case reviews. I do not know whether any other Members of the House have ever been involved in serious case reviews or what preceded them, but I certainly have. I have chaired them, written them, and given evidence to them. I remain strongly of the view that they should not be published. I do not think that they would give a great deal of help. They are important within authorities, because they help people in those authorities to understand what went wrong in their area, and to learn from it, but the summaries should be sufficient to enable people to learn. I commend the NSPCC for publishing those summaries on its website. That is where one goes to if one wants to find out what the child protection issues are. I ask the Department to look at the matter more carefully.
	Research done on the back of those summaries to bring together the lessons learned is important. The real tragedy of all the cases that we are discussing is not that we do now know what is going wrong, but that the same things go wrong year in, year out. To concentrate on saying, Publish serious case reviews is to miss the point. We know a great deal about what goes wrong, so we need to concentrate on learning that and making sure that all professionals have that information.
	We also need to do more about learning from good practice. I recall a case of sexual abuse that I was involved with some 15 years ago. We were congratulated by our local authority at the end of the process; we worked very well with the police and a conviction was secured. The people in the policy section of the council said, We must come and see how you did that, and what made it work. Of course, they never did. So much more time and effort goes into looking at the cases that go wrong than into those that go well.
	Another enormously important issue is better inspection. I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) on the idea of embedding inspectors in departments; I would worry about their independence. However, closer involvement is important. The way in which inspections have been carried out means that individual social workers, and managers, can go years without their practices ever being looked at by any external person; that is not right. We need to change that, and we need to be more rigorous in that regard.
	My final plea is that we make a big effort on the issue. The Government should look at what the social work taskforce comes up with in due course, and something should then happen on the ground. In 1998, social workers stood up and cheered when the Labour Government gave money to the quality protects programme, and for the first time in 10 years we stopped cutting social work posts and invested in doing something about children. We need the same kind of energy now. We need a new initiative, but one that focuses on child protection specifically, rather than on children's services as a whole.

Lynne Featherstone: When the Victoria Climbi tragedy happened in Haringey, the leadership took no fall for that. Only the social worker at the end of the food chain took all the blame and was hung out to dry. That is why Laming so pointedly criticised the lack of accountability in the leadership, why the GovernmentI am grateful to themput in the Children Act 2004 two accountable positions for child protection, and why those people at the top had to go this time. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for acting so resolutely and swiftly to ensure that Laming's views were regarded.
	I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has done. The concentration has been on the practice, management and focus of children's services, and rightly so, as that is the front line. However, those departments do not exist in isolation. They are subject to pressures. If those pressures and the wider issues are not examined, those departments, however good their work is, will again succumb to those pressures in the years to come and begin to fail. That is why I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman and continue to call for a public inquiry to examine those wider issues.
	Very briefly, I shall give some of my reasons for that opinion, one of which relates to cost. Although that should not be an issue, I have been told by two sources that an e-mail and a memo are going between senior managers in Haringey instructing senior managers not to take children into care. I have made a freedom of information request to obtain that information, which was denied on cost grounds. I appealed and I am now referring the matter to the Information Commissioner. I have passed that information to Mr. Badman, because it is not inconceivable that cost was an issue in that children's services department.
	We need to look at scrutiny. It is not as though Haringey did not have whistleblowers coming out of its ears, trying to tell it what was going on. I went privately and without any coverage, so that politics and publicity would not come into it, to the leader and the chief executive of Haringey council to tell them about three cases in which there was an endemic problem of a closing of ranks when people tried to raise issues of concern. One of those people was a social worker, one was a parent and one was a school governor.
	Sharon Shoesmith famously said that her department was commendable and did not need scrutiny. Opposition members raised the matter of concern in full council and in other places. We need to consider how we can ensure that those concerns are taken seriously and that politics do not get in the way of issues being dealt with properly.
	Perhaps we need to revisit the merger between children's services and education. I tread on dangerous ground in making that suggestion. I do not know the answer. Why were health visitors not included in that merger? Where there is an education head, social services or children's services feel that they are not covered, and vice versa. There are issues that we need to revisit.
	Secrecy and injunctions are further matters of concern. Haringey has issued many injunctions to stop employees talking about what they know, quite apart from what they might say in private to a serious case review. Injunctions should not be issued like confetti. They act as a protection for the serious issues involved and should not be used to stop people talking about what they know.
	We must also consider the paper trails that are created. We need to look at the Government hoop that Haringey jumped through by presenting false information to Ofsted, which did not see what was under its nose. I shall not enlarge on that, as I want to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) to speak. I conclude by asking hon. Members to sign early-day motion 53. There are already 100 signatures. We need to look at the wider issues or the Department will not be able to hold out against the pressures on it, however good the Secretary of State can make social workers.

Edward Timpson: I preface my short contribution to the debate by re-emphasising that the issue requires genuine cross-party co-operation. It is important to recognise that there are many children who have been well protected by our care system, and they are the rule rather than the exception. However, I want to speak in this debate because of my lifelong involvement in child protection, as a result of which I have a deep desire to make sure that we get it right.
	Child protection is about safeguarding children and managing risks. Although the Every Child Matters Green Paper was important and commendable in its motives, sadly it has not led to the wholesale reform of child protection intended by the 2003 Lord Laming report. In my view, it has not been helped by the clear tension between the two statutory duties of local authorities: on the one hand, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need within their areas; and on the other, and as far as is consistent with that duty, to promote the upbringing of such children by their families.
	As a consequence, councils are seeking alternative options for children identified as being at riskfor example, section 20 voluntary accommodation and placements with family friends, as happened in the baby P case. In my experience, that has led to some cases that have gone on far too long before there has been any legal intervention to protect the child. The problem is compounded by two, more recent, introductions. First, there is the hike in issue fees in care cases and, secondly, there is the public law outline in our court system.
	I turn to issue fees. There has been a thirty-twofold increase in court fees charged for care proceedings, imposed by the Government; they have gone from 150 to 4,825 per case. As an immediate consequence, there was a 20 per cent. drop in care applications. Many see that as a significant disincentive against cash-strapped local authorities taking care proceedings. For example, from March 2007 until April 2008, Sunderland spent 32,000 on care proceedings; from March 2008 to December 2008, it spent 116,000 on them. The Government would say that they had provided 40 million to help local authorities finance those hikes in the cost of care applications. However, that additional money was not ring-fenced for that purpose and, as we know, local authorities have a number of other financial constraints. Perhaps the money would be much better spent in other waysthe issue of five care proceedings, for instance, would pay for a family support worker for a whole year. I ask the Minister how it can be right to charge such an extortionate and disproportionate fee to bring proceedings to protect vulnerable children.
	Secondly, there is the issue of the public law outline. I declare an interest, as I had some direct experience of the outline when it was in its infancy in April-May last year. Even at that stage, in the pilot phase, it was obvious that although its aims were laudable, it was an unrealistic model for our current care system, particularly as we are now aware that one in seven social work positions sits vacant. The fact is that local authorities do not currently have the means, resources or expertise to fulfil everything that the public law outline requires them to do. Indeed, the shortages of social workers and the revolving nature of their involvement in a case often mean that the author of the initial social work statement is different from the social worker who carries the case through the courts.
	I am delighted that in my constituency the new local authority-to-be, Cheshire East, has recognised the enormous significance of child protection in its range of responsibilities. My message to it and to the Secretary of State is that we must continue to invest in more permanent and highly trained social workers, reduce their casework load, reverse the rise in care application fees and review the public law outline and its impact. Despite the best intentions on all sides, there are still flaws in our care system, and they must be put right.

Maria Miller: This debate has been an opportunity seriously to discuss the importance of child protection. It is rather disappointing that the Secretary of State did little to illustrate to those who watch our deliberations carefully that he was able to approach the debate in the collaborative manner that our constituents and others would expect. Members of this House expect better. He used statistics about the numbers of deaths of children from abuse in a way that some, including my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), may say runs the risk of being misleading. I would like to give the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, who will wind up for the Government, the opportunity to set the record straight, because I am sure she would not want to leave her Secretary of State in the position of potentially misleading the House by saying that the Opposition would cut budgets in this area.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must not use intemperate language like that. Even a hint of a reference to misleading the House is not what I expect. Perhaps the hon. Lady could gently withdraw.

Maria Miller: Thank you for that guidance, Mr. Speaker. Obviously what I really want the Minister to do is set the record straight.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady should withdraw that remark. That is finewe all have to do that from time to time.

Maria Miller: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	We all have a clear duty to do all that we can [ Interruption. ] I am sorry, Mr. Speaker; I withdraw my comment so that we can move on and have an important and constructive debate.
	We all have a clear duty to do what we can to ensure that children growing up in our country are safe. In that respect, the Government are absolutely right to say that safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility. Yet the tragic case of baby P graphically shows that although changes have made following the death of Victoria Climbi some eight years ago, there remain unacceptable and devastating flaws in child protection that need urgent attention if there is to be a change in the unacceptably high levels of child abuse in this country. In truth, the systems that support families have struggled to keep up with the staggering pace of change in our society. Increased levels of family breakdown, highlighted by this week's Children's Society report, coupled with increasingly mobile families, with few people living in the same place for life, mean that the natural checks and balances and safeguards built into our communities over time have been eroded.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) pointed out in his thoughtful and well-presented speech, it is not that there is a lack of legislation in this areaindeed, the scale of change may have added to some of the problems that we have encounteredbut that we have to ensure that the protection system itself does not overwhelm the most important issue, which is the care of children in our society. It is important that that point is noted.
	The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) rightly observed that these are highly complex issues, but it is clear that there are still lessons to be learned. I hope that the Minister will do what her Secretary of State has perhaps not indicated that he is willing to do and listen to the proposals for further reform that we have put forward.
	I particularly commend my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for all the work that he has done. Under his chairmanship, the Conservative party commission on social workers has provided a clear analysis of the problems that have to be faced and some detailed and practical policy proposals that the Government should carefully consider. Those proposals would provide the framework of openness, transparency and accountability that is so badly needed.
	Most significantly of all, we have highlighted the importance of front-line professionals in delivering the changes that are needed. That was reiterated by Members on both sides of the House; indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness talked about unsung heroes. Although the structures and systems are important, it is the training, experience and continuity of front-line professionals that are critical in child abuse cases. As Dr. Eileen Munro of the London School of Economics said of the Victoria Climbi case, there was no shortage of information but there was a shortage of wisdom as to how that information should be used.
	The right hon. Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong) said that we must ensure that we can enable people to make sound and robust judgments; she made a very good point. Up and down the country, many of the professionals tasked with child protection are finding it difficult to ensure that the level of care that is needed is in place. Indeed, we know from the statistics that in eight local authorities, including the borough of Haringey where baby P died, a third of the required number of social workers are not in place.
	It is not enough just to treat the symptoms. We also need to ensure that early intervention is in place, because it is key if we are to see a reduction in the number of child abuse cases that so many hon. Members have talked about today. It is important that Sure Start has an even stronger role in providing a focal point to support families before they reach that crisis point. That is why we have set out in detail our plans to re-establish a modernised universal health visitor service, led through Sure Start, to ensure that families, particularly vulnerable ones, get the support they need. That service will ensure that Sure Start is effective in reaching vulnerable families in our community.
	In conclusion, child protection remains a top priority for Conservatives, and this Opposition day debate graphically illustrates that. I welcome the time given by the House to the discussion of these important issues. In the light of the baby P case, Lord Laming's report on child protection is due to be published in a few weeks' time. The Government need to take some decisive action to ensure that the professionals on whom we rely to protect and support some of the most vulnerable people in our society are trained, prepared and supported to deal with the demands that they face on a day-to-day basis.
	As we sit here today, staff shortages, vacancies and spiralling case loads mean that professionals are spread thinly. They already feel that they are losing touch with some of the most vulnerable families in our community. Last month, Unison referred to the situation as a ticking time bomb that will lead to more tragic deaths in the future. We urge the Government to take up the measures that we have proposed today to defuse that ticking time bomb, and to ensure that everything possible is done to prevent future tragic headlines from hitting our newspapers.

Beverley Hughes: I start by saying that I welcome the fact of this debate but regret the tone of it, which was set by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). We genuinely wanted a cross-party consensus that would demonstrate to the outside world the importance we all ascribe to keeping our children safe. We hoped that we could agree across the House on what more needs to be done to ensure, as far as we possibly can, that the safety and protection of children are as good, reliable and consistent as they can be.
	We are building on the fact that this Government have done more than any other to protect children, with the critical reforms in the Children Act 2004, the Every Child Matters programme and the establishment of multi-agency children's trusts and local safeguarding children boards. All have transformed the local arrangements for prevention, early intervention and the robust inter-agency responses necessary when children are at risk. I am not complacent, however, and we need to keep a relentless focus on how well those reforms are implemented in every local area. We will not tolerate a postcode lottery in safeguarding. We have to ensure that every single child everywhere has that most basic of rights: a safe childhood.
	In the majority of areas, as Ofsted has shown us, things are moving in the right direction, but we need to ensure that that continues. No Government can guarantee 100 per cent. safety, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Hilary Armstrong) pointed out, but that definitely should be our goal. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already outlined the progress made in the last 10 years, and acknowledged the serious concerns following the tragic death of baby P and the action that we have taken since. We have to ensure that every children's trust performs to the highest standard, which is why we are strengthening them legally. We are awaiting Lord Laming's report, and we expect further improvements from the work of the social work taskforce. Where areas fall behind, as in Haringey and elsewhere, we will continue to take swift, decisive action, including in Surrey. I have to say that I cannot understand the failure of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) to respond to my genuine invitation to give him a briefing on the serious situation in Surrey. I would have thought that he would be interested in the implications of the inadequacies that exist for the children of Surrey. Together with his failure to lead the debate, that will call into question the Tories' commitment to child protection. It was a serious error of judgment.
	Members raised three key issues, the first of which was the work force. I say to the Opposition that there are issues to consider in relation to the work force, but that their freedom of information figures include not just social workers but everybody in the social care work force. They therefore inflate the vacancy rate, which is at a national average of 9.5 per cent.too high, but not as high as the Opposition cited. There was also a rise of 39 per cent. in the number of full-time equivalent social workers employed between 1998 and 2007.
	I agree that improving the status, training and practice of social workers is key to the further reforms that are needed. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) that it is very important that we have that highly trained work force. That is why, in addition to the measures that we have already taken, the social work taskforce is helping us to focus on what needs to take place on the front line.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham pointed out the importance of prevention and early intervention, which are very much part of child protection. She has championed the family nurse practitioners whom we are now funding and the huge investment in services for the under-fives, which was not in place pre-1997. That is very important in making a big difference to children and their safety.
	The third key point that was raised was the importance of data, information sharing and joint working. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield for pointing that out. Every inquiry into the death or serious harming of a child since the case of Maria Colwell in 1974, when I was just starting out on postgraduate training as a probation officer, has pinpointed the failure to share information and the failure of professionals to act together as key factors in failing to safeguard those children. That is why ContactPoint is so essential.

Graham Stuart: rose

Beverley Hughes: I am sorry; I am going to finish. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.
	I implore Opposition Members to rethink their position on the ContactPoint system. It is not of itself a guarantee, but without it we cannot be sure that we will not see another failure of information sharing leading to the death of a child. Systems have been intended to achieve that for 30-odd years and have still not done it, and ContactPoint is essential.
	This has been a very important debate, and if one thing has united us, it has been the opportunity to acknowledge the commitment and dedication of those involved in services right across social care, health, the police and beyondall those involved in safeguarding children. They face a difficult job in challenging circumstances, and we must support them. However, we recognise that there is much more to be done. Every single child should enjoy a happy, safe childhood, regardless of where they live or their background. Achieving that means a relentless drive by the Government and local children's trusts to raise standards and tackle failure. It means support for social workers and their training, the willingness not to duck difficult decisions such as that on ContactPoint and the commitment to sustain the money necessary to invest in services.
	The Opposition have told us little about what they would do and where they would get the money. They have said that they are not committed to children's centres and that they would axe ContactPoint. Their spending plans would cut 300 million from the children's non-school budget. That is the equivalent of a 2 million hole in every local authority's budget.
	By contrast, the Government will continue to invest in children and families, drive the necessary reforms and raise standards to give every child the best. I commend the Government amendment to the House.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
	 The House divided: Ayes 198, Noes 292.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the proposed words be there added.
	 Question agreed to.
	 The Speaker declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2)).
	 Resolved,
	That this House agrees that safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility; recognises that keeping children safe is a top priority for this Government, commends action taken by the Government following the tragic death of Baby P, to keep children safe in Haringey; welcomes the requirement that all local safeguarding children's boards responsible for serious case reviews judged inadequate by Ofsted convene an independently chaired panel to reconsider the review and report to the Secretary of State; agrees with the Deputy Children's Commissioner and the NSPCC that while comprehensive executive summaries should be published full serious case reviews should remain confidential; affirms its conviction that the Every Child Matters reforms are soundly based and essential in driving change for children; welcomes evidence in the joint chief inspectors' third report on safeguarding children of improvements since 2005 in children's services and outcomes for children and young people; commends the development by the inspectorates of new local area assessment and inspection arrangements; welcomes the commissioning of Lord Laming to report on progress being made across the country in implementing effective arrangements for safeguarding children; agrees with his recommendation that serious case review panels should be chaired by people independent of the reporting agencies; commends the creation of a Social Work Taskforce to review frontline social work, including the role and development of the Integrated Children's System in support of its work; and further commends the recent announcement of the first stage of delivery of ContactPoint, which experts agree is vital to keep children safe.

Business without Debate

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Tribunals and Inquiries

Ordered,
	That the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules 2008 (S.I., 2008, No. 2699) dated 9 October 2008, be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee .(Ian Lucas. .)

EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119 (11)),

Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2008-09

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 15455/08, Commission Communication: Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2008-09; and supports the Government's policy that Turkey, Croatia and all the countries of the Western Balkans should be able to join the EU when they meet the criteria. (Ian Lucas.)
	 Question agreed to.

Delegated Legislation

Motion made, and Question  put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118 (6)),

Financial Services and Markets

That the draft Unit Trusts (Electronic Communications) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 8 December, be approved. (Ian Lucas.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118 (6)),
	That the draft Open-Ended Investment Companies (Amendment) Regulations 2009,which were laid before this House on 8 December, be approved. (Ian Lucas.)
	 Question agreed to.

Scottish Affairs

Ordered,
	That Lindsay Roy be added to the Scottish Affairs Committee .(Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)

2011 CENSUS (SOUTHEND)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. (Ian Lucas.)

David Amess: All Members of Parliament, regardless of their party affiliations, want to do the best they can for their constituents. All we ask is fairness and fair treatment for our constituents. Sadly, however, the last census served the constituents of Southend extremely poorly and the repercussions were so serious that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and I found that our constituents had suffered a 7 million shortfall.
	I do not want to spend too much time dwelling on the past, but it is necessary to share a few things with the Ministeraccepting immediately, of course, that he was not in post at the time. It is all there in  Hansardthe meetings I had, the Adjournment debates and the representations I madebut at the end of it all, I got absolutely nowhere. I had what I regard as a very unsatisfactory meeting with the people responsible for organising the national census. Frankly, they failed to budge one inch. As a result of the shortfall in funding, Southend council had to cut bus services and all manner of things because we were 7 million short.
	Looking back on what went on at the time, I have to say to the Minister that, sadly, I feel that I was not involved at an early stage when the census was being prepared and it appeared to be going wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East was not even the Member for his constituency then, so he has no knowledge of what went on at that time.
	I am delighted to tell the Minister that my hon. Friend and I are now working closely with Southend council, having been asked to assist at an early stage so that we can get the Southend census right. On a slightly sour note, I must also tell him that last week, having travelled down from Westminster during the day specifically to attend a meeting with representatives of the people organising the census, my hon. Friend and I received a message saying that they could not make the meeting because they had been stuck at Gatwick, and would eventually arrive some three or four hours later. We had to return to Westminster. It cannot therefore be said that the process has got off to a great start in every respect.
	Putting the past behind us, however, I can tell the Minister that Southend has already set up a cross-sector census group chaired by the interim head of policy and improvement. We have engaged Royal Mail to ensure that accurate household data are provided. We have a communications strategy, beginning this year, to educate the public about the survey. I do not want to sound pompous, but I am sure the Minister will understand what I mean when I say that I do not think there is a huge appreciation of the importance of the census among the general public.
	Southend borough council is developing area profiles to help the Office for National Statistics to target its enumerators on hard-to-reach areas. According to census regional champion David Monks, it is the first authority to begin preparations for the census. I am very glad that, on this occasion, the council could not be better prepared. My hon. Friend and I think that, under the leadership of Councillor Nigel Holcroft and his deputy John Lambtogether with Rob Tinlin, the chief executive, and one of his officers, Sally Hollandit is doing an excellent job in covering every aspect of what went wrong before.
	I have a number of questions to ask the Minister. Obviously he cannot respond to them all tonight, but I hope he will reflect on them in due course, and perhaps respond at a later stage.
	Whether the 2001 Southend population count was 16,000 too low, 18,000 too low, as some have said, or 20,000 too lowI believe that estimate, because I support the primary care trust's figuresthe under-count led to significant underfunding. I should like the Minister to conduct some research with his officials to establish whether, if similar differences emerge following the 2011 census, there will be a defined and robust appeal process that will be able to draw on all available evidence to determine the population figure accurately. That would reassure the council, because no such system appeared to be operating last time. As far as I can remember, three or four councils' appeals were heard.
	Either last week or the week before, the Minister for Local Government responded to a topical question about houses in multiple occupation, which is a serious issue in Southend because it contains numerous such houses. The ONS has commented that they cause special problems for enumeration purposes, some of which may be compounded by the proposed postal delivery system. What guarantees can the ONS give that all houses in multiple occupation will be accurately identified, and that robust follow-up action will be taken to ensure that an accurate census is achieved? The ONS has acknowledged that houses in multiple occupation, both legal and illegal, are difficult to count. They pose a particular challenge when there is no single householder to take responsibility for returning the census form.
	I must say to the Minister at this point that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East and I have seen the census forms. They are 32 pages long. The constituency I represent has the most senior citizens and centenarians in the country. Anyone who has a lot to do with elderly people, particularly the very elderly, will know that they often do not open their mailperhaps because their fingers are too frail. How can we expect them to fill in forms 32 pages long? That will be difficult for them to do, unless they have a dedicated advocate.
	How will the ONS ensure that flexible living arrangements such as HMOs do not interfere with the collection of accurate census forms? We have a wonderful college in Southend, under the leadership of Jan Hodges. There are already 4,000 students there, and their numbers are growing all the time. The census is being held during the Easter break, so how can we be assured that term-time addresses are accurately collected so as to ensure that Southend does not lose out on funding because the number of students is not taken into account?
	Since 2001 we have suffered from a larger demand for services than the budget has allowed for. The revenue support grant element of local authority funding is the main funding stream to deliver local services. If Southend's RSG is increased as a result of the next census, will we be able to access these much-needed funds immediately, rather than in due course?
	In October, the ONS will carry out a rehearsal in three areas. I understand that it is voluntary for householders to take part, and the exercise is being used to test the delivery mechanism. Southend feels strongly that this engagement mechanism is not the most reliable for a number of reasons, particularly for houses in multiple occupation and gated communities, of which we have many. How does the ONS propose to ensure that this mechanism works and is accurate, and can we be assured that every household identified will actually receive a census form to complete?
	If Southend is successful in obtaining an accurate population count in 2011, that will affect the amount of RSG. What mechanism are the Government putting in place to ensure that these much-needed additional funds are made available to Southend with immediate effect, thereby releasing cost pressures on service delivery?
	I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East wants to speak, so I shall move on swiftly. The ONS is developing a post-out, post-back mechanism for the 2011 census. It predicts that 95 per cent. of forms will be posted out and 75 per cent. will be posted back directly by the householder. This would generate huge volumes of post in a short time. Can the ONS assure us that whichever provider is chosen will have the capacity to deal with those huge volumes of additional post, and that there will be minimal loss of forms?
	Timeliness is essential when working with statistical data, and even more so in connection with designing services for citizens. The ONS has indicated that data will be available approximately 18 to 24 months after the census. Why is there such an extraordinarily long delay in releasing data from the census to local authorities, and will the ONS be held to account to deliver the data in a timely fashion, as is often demanded of local authorities? The ONS has acknowledged that there were delays in the mail system in relation to the forms returned in 2001. What assurances can the ONS give that its proposed postal delivery mechanism will have enough capacity to cope with an estimated 75 per cent. postal return rate?
	The ONS is predicting that 25 per cent. of respondents will use the internet. I find the internet challenging in doing my work as a Member of Parliament, so I do not know quite how that will work. What assurances can the ONS give that adequate security and safeguards are in place to ensure the integrity of the internet site so that personal information cannot be stolen and used by criminals? The ONS suggests that the new census form will comprise 32 pages. The increase is due to additional questions being included in the form, and the addition in respect of a sixth person in the household. With growing family sizes and more houses in multiple occupation, what guarantees does the ONS give that it is confident that households of more than six peoplewe have many of those in Southendwill request an additional form?
	The ONS has published proposals to operate a helpline to assist citizens with completing the form, because many households will not receive any of the doorstep support from enumerators that was given during previous censuses. That support is vital for those who do not speak English as a first language, and for the elderly. As many people work long hours, how will the ONS ensure that those who cannot access the 8 am to 8 pm helpline will receive the support that they need?
	I have many other questions to ask, so I shall write to the Minister. A big issue in Southend is that the town contains many people from eastern European countries who, for all sorts of reasons, seem reluctant and frightened to return the census forms. What suggestion does the Minister have as to we can encourage those people to be more confident in returning their forms? I have every confidence that he will do his best to ensure that this time, the census in Southend is accurate.
	To return to what I said at the start, all that I, like other hon. Members, am asking for is fair treatment. As the Minister knows only too well, an accurate census is essential if Southend is to get a fair share of the money available for essential local services.

James Duddridge: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on securing this debate on a vital issue. At the best of times, the relationship between government and the electorate is a difficult one; it is a contract whereby the electorate pay tax in return for the provision of services. As a result of the 2001 census, the people of Southend are being ripped off and I am very concerned about things, despite the preparations for the 2011 census.
	As my hon. Friend mentioned, I was not in Southend and I was not a Member of Parliament during the 2001 census. In fact, I was taking part in a census in Botswana, where I lived at the time. Even in Gaborone, someone knocked on the door and went through the census, as happened during our 2001 census. The questions were slightly differentI was asked how many head of cattle and how many chickens I hadbut the essence of knocking on the door to get that information was in place. It deeply concerns me that the Government and the ONS will be moving away from that approach in 2011. They are moving away from the idea that someone will knock on the door and deliver the form, and that that same person will come back again and again. The Government are setting themselves up for a worse result in 2011even compared with the 2001 base point.
	I congratulate the ONS on running a number of pilots, but I am baffled why it has not chosen some of the areas that are said to have lost population in the 2001 census. I am thinking of places such as Westminster, Forest Heath, Kensington and Chelsea, Cambridge, Richmond, Manchester, Oxford, Elmbridge and Barnet. Why were those areas not chosen as test areas in order to sort the problem out? If we get the right figures, will the Minister make better transitional arrangements over the following two years, because to wait a further two years, on top of 10 years of unfair underfunding, would add insult to injury? I shall be writing to you, Mr. Speaker, seeking a wider Westminster Hall debate on the census, inviting colleagues from all into those areas to tease out some of the broader subjects. I have also inquired the level of interest in the census across the parties. I believe that an approach was made by the ONS to set up an all-party group on the census, and such a group would be a good way forward.
	If I have read it correctly, the Census Act 1920, as amended in 2000, will involve some form of affirmative resolution, probably later this year, to give permission to go ahead with the 2011 census and to set out some of the detail. Such an arrangement would mean wholly inadequate scrutiny on the part of this Parliament. I shall also seek timeperhaps Government timeon the Floor of the House to consider the census. We talk to our constituents about the demand for policing, schools and the health service, but unless we get the base numbers of the population right in 2011, nothing else will make sense.
	The 1911 census was made available recently and has provoked a lot of interest from those interested in their family history and in social history generally. After spending 450 million and still getting the figures so wrong, the Government should ask whether it is right to use the census figures as a base point for our funding of primary care trusts, policing and education. They are so vague and inaccurate that they are laughable, but they massively affect the lives of our communities. The issue should be considered again after 2011. Perhaps more accurate data could be gathered annually, with lists updated regularlylike primary care trust lists. That would make the relationship between the electorate of Southendand more broadlyand the Government much more equitable.

Kevin Brennan: I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on securing this debate, and I welcome the opportunity to respond, albeit in an arm's length capacity. I cannot do some of the things that the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) might like me to do, as I would not want to interfere too much with the independence of the Office for National Statistics or the UK Statistics Authority. However, I support many of the points that he made about the need to improve the ability to use statistics from other sources in population estimates, and I look forward to his wholehearted support on each occasion when the Government introduce the measures necessary to enable the ONS to do just that.
	I thank the hon. Member for Southend, West for highlighting the importance of the census, both in his contribution tonight and on the other occasions on which he has raised this issue in the House. I am pleased to hear about the work that is already going on in Southend, including what he is doing to highlight the importance of the census to the citizens, and the work that he is doing in conjunction with his local authority.
	The UK Statistics Authority's proposals for the 2011 census in England and Wales were published in a White Paper on 11 December. In planning the design for the census, officials in the ONS have taken account of the recommendations made following the 2001 census by the Treasury Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office, the former Statistics Commission, other bodies such as the Local Government Association, and Members of Parliament, many of whom had representations to make.
	In the time available, I shall seek to answer as many of the questions that the hon. Member for Southend, West raised as I can. He raised the issue of appeals. There is no appeals process planned for the census, but steps have been taken in the design of the 2011 census to giving the highest priority to getting the national and local population estimates right. The ONS will seek to maximise the overall response rate while reducing the differences in response rates between areas and among particular population sub-groups. Local authorities will be asked to provide data from alternative sources in order to assist the ONS with the quality assurance process. That will provide an opportunity for positive engagement before the population estimates are published.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of houses in multiple occupation. One aim of the local authority liaison programme is to identify those areas where there are likely to be high proportions of HMOs, because they do pose a particular problem in census enumeration. The ONS therefore plans to adopt a traditional approach to those areas, using the enumerator rather than the postal approach to identify addresses where additional forms to cover more than one household may be necessary.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of students, and particular attention will be paid to students in the census. In most areasalthough I accept not in allstudents will be at their term-time address at the time of the census. Others might be living at their home addresses or elsewhere at the time of the census, and students in Southend, as elsewhere, will be counted as resident at their term-time addresses, irrespective of where they are on census day. The census will include a question on term-time addresses for students.
	On the rate support grant, the Government consulted local government in December 2004 about moving towards three-year settlements. The vast majority of responses favoured that approach, as it provides predictability and stability in funding from central Government. The calculation of formula grant that an authority receives will be based on the most up-to-date data available at the beginning of the three-year period. It is not possible to say when the 2011 census data will feed into the calculations, because it will depend on when the data become available and on where we are in the three-year cycle at that point.
	Both hon. Gentlemen raised issues to do with the rehearsal for the census. That will take place on 11 October, covering 135,000 households in areas chosen to simulate census-type conditions. I will write to the hon. Member for Southend, West with details of why those areas have been chosen and with the criteria that were used. The rehearsal will include 61,000 households in Lancaster, or the whole of the local authority, 40,000 in Newham in London, or 40 per cent. of the borough, and the whole of the island of Anglesey, or Ynys Mn as it is known in this House. Although response to the rehearsal is voluntary, the same procedures will be adopted as in the census and the design of the rehearsal will enable valid statistical conclusions to be made on the effectiveness of the operation.
	The hon. Member for Southend, West also asked what support will be in place for local authorities that see their numbers significantly reduced and, as a result, see their grants reduced. A floor damping procedure will be in place to ensure that all local authorities will receive a minimum percentage change in grants to provide stability from the effects of changes from updating data or changing methodology. That will be funded by scaling back the grant increases above the floor for other authorities. The decision on what those floor levels will be will, of course, be taken in due course. A balance will need to be struck between doing what is affordable while allowing some underlying change to come through in the funding of local authorities.
	Some concern was expressed by both hon. Gentlemen about the post and the impact of using the post rather than hand-delivered surveys. In fact, in the 2001 census, even with hand delivery, enumerators failed to make doorstep contact with households at more than a third of the addresses that they visited and had to resort to delivering the form through the letterbox. The use of an established postal service will enable a more focused approach to the follow-up activities in order to improve response rates. The plan is for a post-back response of 60 to 70 per cent. The contract with the chosen postal service will demand the ability to cope with that level of response within the time frame allocated. A purpose-built address list and form-tracking system will enable the ONS to monitor and record the delivery of every form in the field, minimising the risk of forms going astray.
	The hon. Member for Southend, West asked why it will take so long to release the data. The final results will be released in September 2012, which, he is right, is 18 months after 27 March 2011. The proposals for the 2011 census include an increased emphasis on quality assurance of the results during their preparationI am sure that he would welcome that increased quality assuranceand cross-checks against other national and local data sources. The statisticians need enough time to conclude the complex task of processing the census data, to make the necessary adjustments for undercounts, and fully to quality-assure the results before they are released and used. A length of time is involved in doing that very complex work.
	The hon. Member for Southend, West asked about the security of filling in forms online, and about how appropriate that system is. I think that it is appropriate for people to be able to return forms online, and we may find that the response rate to that is high. The ONS is committed to ensuring proper data security and confidentiality. Despite some of the complaints that are raised in this House, the ONS has a very good record on data assurance, but perhaps I can give the hon. Gentleman further details of the plans in place when I write to him following the debate.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about growing family sizes, and was concerned about the large size of the form and the additional forms that would be required in households. In fact, the average household size across the country is smaller than it was in 2001, but the form has been redesigned to accommodate space for an additional resident and up to three visitors in order to reduce the number of requests for additional forms. However, there will be clear instructions on the form and in accompanying publicity material on how to obtain additional forms for larger households.
	A helpline will also be put in place. The hon. Gentleman was concerned that it would be open only from 8 am to 8 pm, but I can assure him that it will be possible for people to call outside those hours, leave a message and ask to be called back. I hope that that is a helpful observation.
	Some concerns have been raised about whether the conduct of the census this time has been designed to make cost savings. In fact, the Government have allocated additional funds to allow for a number of improvements in the 2011 census. Those improvements include more questions, a national address register, an internet collection option, more resources to follow up non-response, and a questionnaire tracking system. Approximately three times the 2001 level of effort will be going into the follow-up operation, which will include helping peoplesuch as the elderlywho have difficulty filling in the forms.
	Time is running short, and the hon. Member for Southend, West was kind enough to tell me that he was interested in finding the answer to a number of other questions. He has pledged to write to me after the debate, and I shall be happy to write back to him with detailed responses to his questions.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.